Midnight Forever
by Louise24601
Summary: Though Killian descends from one of the royal families who govern the world of vampires, he's retreated to a small town where he means to blend with humans and forget about his lineage. But war looms on the horizon. All he wants is to save Emma Swan from the clutch of his enemies. But what's a doomed romance to the world of vampire politics? AU. Vampires.
1. Chapter 1

**AN** : I realize that turning a majority of the OUAT cast into vampires sounds silly, and I promise I'll try to make it as little silly as possible. Since _Twilight_ happened it became hard to take vampires seriously but they were once – and still can be – very powerful creatures of horror. Let me know if you enjoy this.

…

Chapter 1: A Change of Order

Emma wasn't supposed to finish so late at work. Really, she was never usually at the office past ten p.m., but it'd been a crazy week, with paperwork just piling up, she barely noticed as the desks next to hers slowly emptied, and when she came out for air for five minutes, the atmosphere was full dark, outside the small bubble of radiance emerging from her desk lamp, and her watch read ten to midnight.

 _Midnight_ , she thought again, after she'd quickly gathered her things and locked the office door behind her. Midnight was a _gothic_ hour, the hour of ghouls and goblins, the hour when all things unnatural came to life. The streets outside were unsurprisingly vacant. It wasn't a long walk to her apartment, fifteen minutes, ten when she hurried, but it was usually earlier. The cars rolling past you in gleaming flashes of color, the noise of passersby's conversations and light shining through the showcases of shops and coffeehouses, trying to lure you in – those were things Emma never consciously thought about and yet, now that the street was stripped of them, it felt radically different. Like it was hardly the same street at all.

How many times had she walked from the office to her apartment? Every day, with few exceptions, for the past five years. Still, she'd swear there was something _uncanny_ about the night air, the sky black-as-terror above her head, the utter absence of sound around her, save for her footsteps on the pavement, whose pace was steadily increasing.

 _Ridiculous_.

As if she were still that impressionable little girl, kept sleepless at night by the stories girls had been whispering to each other at the orphanage. That urban legend about a woman walking alone down the streets –

"Idiot." Emma hissed through her clenched teeth. The night was cool, the month of April had been mild. She'd not even bothered to zip up her coat.

 _Come on, now_ , she thought. _Just a few more minutes._ Vainly, she resisted against the urge to walk faster, pressed her hands to her chest to stifle the sound of her heartbeat. She wouldn't _run_ all the way home like a terrified teenager. She was a mature, working woman, and she refused to believe secret thrills lay hidden in the coat of darkness –

Then, Emma suddenly forgot to think. She stopped walking, very much as if – not her own feet – but the very _air_ around her had turned to solid stone. In her chest, her lungs were drained and tight as fists, crushed, smothering.

Emma _felt_ the man behind her before she heard or saw him. Sure enough, when she stopped walking, he only stopped a second later, and the sound of his step behind her made the hairs in her neck stand still, but she felt him, even before that, felt him in the sudden sense of _un-aloneness_ around her, filling the night with cruel mockery.

 _I wanted to run_ , she suddenly thought, could think of nothing else. _Why didn't I run?_

The man spoke as if reading her mind. "You know humans are the only animals who go against their instinct?"

Emma was silent. The air around her was still stone-like and there was no breaking its spell on her.

"Odd." He commented.

The voice, she noticed, was rich and not unpleasant, though somehow chilling. Remarkable. She was convinced, even if she'd heard that voice in broad daylight, in the middle of a crowded room, she would have shuddered, would have been filled with that bloodcurdling coldness, all the same.

Slowly, she heard him moving, his footsteps drawing nearer and nearer. Launched in a mad race, her heart was screaming wildly at her – _Melt! Evaporate!_ – but breaking from her paralysis proved impossible.

"When you hunt rabbits, deer, even the tamest animals, they always _run_."

Emma wanted to close her eyes but then the man was standing erect in front of her, and it was too late. He was very tall, gaunt as a specter, with very long, very black hair. But the worst was his mouth, carved into a smile that Emma wanted to obliterate from her memory, because the raw fear it inspired was worse even than whatever was coming.

"Why don't humans run?" He asked.

Emma swallowed. It crossed her mind to beg but it felt as if nothing would come out if she opened her mouth, or something absurd and silent, like soap bubbles.

Suddenly, the man's hand was on her cheek, and Emma knew there was something deeply _wrong_ with his touch, cold, unnatural, electric.

It shook her out of her dumbness. "Please –"

He put a finger on her lips. A black hole opened up inside of Emma, filling up with protest she couldn't speak. That's when she noticed the man's fingernails were unusually long. And the smell, coming from his skin –

Like the stray cat the girls at the orphanage liked to feed sometimes, who got hit by a car and when Emma picked it up it was stiff and heavy, its fur matted with blood and dirt.

The smell of death.

"It's all right." The man said. But then the smile on his lips said otherwise. "This won't hurt."

…

" _No_."

Killian caught his old friend Samael during a meal. The girl was hanging limp from his arms, blond hair cascading into the blue night, blood dripping down the pavement.

Anger shot straight to Killian's chest, that old ghost of a heart, whatever of it was left. "Just like this, Sam?" He said. "In the middle of the streets?"

Clearly, Samael had meant to defy him. But had he grown bold enough to defy the counsel as well?

"Let her go." Killian thundered.

Samael looked up from the girl's neck, half of his face red and wet, glistening in the moonlight. "Things have changed, Killian. If you'd sat at the counsel recently, you'd know caution laws are evaporating. Our kind is tired of sharing a world with humans when they could rule as kings."

" _Not_ here. Not in this town."

"Everywhere I want. This isn't your territory anymore." Samael smiled. The pearly white of his teeth was rosy, and he ran his tongue across them to wipe them clean. "There was a time when you could settle in a small town and scare away all of the vampires who came near. But things are changing, friend. Pretty soon, war will break loose, and you and I know war against humans will mean slaughter."

He chuckled. In his arms, Killian thought he saw the girl stir.

"You won't be able to keep your precious Storybrooke untainted. Anarchy's coming. You might as well roll along with it."

"Let her go, Samael," Killian said once more. Serious as death. "I'll fight you."

A spark lit up in the other's gaze. Killian stood ready, alert, watching for the merest hostility.

"No," Samael decided. The woman fell inanimate on the pavement as he dropped her. "Not tonight. When you've been someone's friend for centuries, you expect their battle to be epic. When we fight, Killian, it'll be with the upper crust of the vampire race watching. You've meant much to me in the past. I want an audience when I kill you."

Samael smiled as he added, before disappearing into the night. "My fallen prince."

Killian waited until he was sure, until his whole body could verify, that he was the only vampire here. Then, he picked up the unconscious woman from the pavement. He knew her face, even in the darkness.

"Emma Swan," he spoke softly, to himself. "What a night you're having."

Then, he, like his friend, faded into the darkness, a shadow joining its kind.

Samael was right.

Things out there were changing.

…

 **End Notes** : Before you call me on the clichés, yes, most are intended. I thought it'd be interesting to write a OUAT fic as a sort of gothic story, so of course Emma is an orphan, and of course Samael is every gothic villain rolled into one. I am planning to have a lot of fun with this, so if you're interested in yet another of my unusually dark stories for the fandom, and if you also think it'd be cool if vampires had a parliamentary monarchy, please tag along and share your thoughts and ideas.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Something About Killian Jones

Emma was conscious of a sharp soreness in her neck, even before she awoke. A rust-like taste in her mouth, blood and bile gone stale. Every limb in her body felt fast-asleep and unresponsive. Tentatively, she tried stirring her fingers, willed apart her eyelids. They clung together for a few seconds but she managed to blink and clamp her hand to her neck –

A small shriek of surprise and pain tore out of her.

The sound of her own voice was reassuring.

Her blond hair was matted with gore, and during that brief contact she felt caked blood on her throat, puncture wounds, the skin hot and no doubt the shade of a full-blown rose.

"Don't try to move."

Emma started at the sound of his voice.

Suddenly, all at once, she took in her surroundings. The room she was in was dimly lit, the lights reduced to a minimum, barely more than you'd get out of a single candle. So Emma couldn't really make out details but _shapes_.

All seemed auburn, wine-shaded in the darkness. She realized she was half-lying on a large enough canopy bed, framed by thick reddish drapes. The sheets beneath her were satin-smooth. Beyond the bed, the majestic outline of bookshelves, some wall decoration, the form of paintings whose images all faded into obscurity.

"What is this place?"

She only realized she'd spoken the words when she heard them out loud. Then, she remembered she wasn't alone – the male voice that had spoken kept her body alert – but she couldn't see the man anywhere, couldn't see how deep the room went, how large it was where its edges blended with the shadows.

"My home," was the answer.

Then, Emma thought the voice was somewhat familiar, yet it didn't seem to belong to anybody she knew. No man in Storybrooke was _dark_ enough for such a voice. In truth, it seemed not only at ease with the blackness but cut out of it.

The source of the sound came from the left end of the room, where Emma could distinguish the shape of a chair. Though she tried to imagine the figure of a man sitting on it, she couldn't see it with her eyes – just with her mind. But maybe that made no difference at all.

She and the man were silent, waiting. Slowly, bits and pieces of last night's incident flew back to Emma's mind. _I finished late at work and there was such a gloomy air to the street, and that fear beating in my heart that no effort could quell, and then there was sudden sound in the silence, and behind me there was a man –_

Emma's blood turned cold as death.

Her captor – she didn't yet think he might be her _protector_ – let out a rich chuckle. "I didn't hurt you," he said, as if divining her thoughts. "I _won't_ hurt you, you have my word."

But Emma remembered the stranger from last night, remembered how he seemed to turn the whole air alive with fire, with fear and violence. And this voice, the shadow-man now sitting in front of her, had this same quality of absolute power.

There was barely a rustle when he got on his feet, but her eyes perceived something moving. Calmly, he drew closer to her, and Emma's heart was madly racing. Every nerve in her body cried out that the man was a predator, wouldn't have reacted differently if she had woken up to find a snake coiled around her waist, or if hell had suddenly opened its giant maw beneath her.

It was instinctive, bone-deep, animal.

But then the man was close enough that he'd stepped out of the shadows and Emma found herself incapable of screaming, thinking, or even letting out the air inside her lungs.

"Killian." She said in recognition.

He smiled, that same strange and distant smile as he was used to.

It wasn't that Emma actually _knew_ Killian Jones. Not anyone in Storybrooke really did, to her knowledge. In the midst of such a homey, gossipy town, Killian was an exception, an oddity. He didn't come out much, was practically never seen in the sort of places where you at least ran into your neighbor once – the grocery store, for example. Robin's supermarket was the only one downtown and yet he swore Killian was never by.

But the talk about Killian didn't just limit itself to where he did his shopping. Where did he _live_? No one ever saw him pulling over into his driveway – or driving anywhere else for that matter – no one ever saw him walking _home_ , and he never invited anyone over. In truth, to most of the villagers, Killian was a shadow, only passing through, and sometimes filling the air with his ominous presence.

Emma never took part in the small-town curiosity that ran rampant about him. For one, she thought if the man acted so private then he probably valued his privacy. But foremost, she rather _liked_ Killian.

Again, not that she knew him. Hardly ever spoke to him. Yet in a strange way, on the rare occasions when his eyes had met hers, when they'd crossed ways, she'd felt – not consciously, of course, but on an _instinctive_ level – that it was meaningful. Somehow, inexplicably, that he meant her well.

Every now and then, after work, Emma liked to visit the Storybrooke library that stayed open until midnight. It was pleasant, even precious, to just open a book and forget everything else about your life for a few hours, disappear and watch as another universe came alive. Last week, she'd read a story about a girl who was stolen by the fairies, who ate food not of this world and could never go back to the way things were.

 _Is that what's happening to me?_

And sometimes, just sometimes, Emma would run into Killian, there at the library. They wouldn't share awkward polite conversation about what each of them were reading or borrowing. Killian never stayed long, generally went through a few shelves and took the book home without delay. But when Emma looked up from her read and smiled at him, courteous and intrigued, he always smiled back, and it never failed to send a shiver down Emma's spine.

Yes, in her _bones_ , she always knew there was something about Killian. Something not quite right. Something different.

"It's all right." He said. There was a firmness in his voice, not ungentle, that she hadn't really paid attention to before. Yet again, she'd never heard him speak so many words until tonight.

"Why did you take me here?" She wasn't sure it was the right question to start with, but she had to start somewhere.

"You were hurt."

"I was attacked."

She realized he was still smiling. "So you remember."

Suddenly, Emma wondered if she should feel angry – Killian did seem to know much about what had happened to her, and she had no reason to trust him. And, she realized, she _was_ afraid – not so much because she thought Killian might hurt her, but in a primal, unstoppable way.

It was the same fear, the same wrongness that had curdled her blood when the man had touched her last night.

As if he sensed this, Killian remained at a reasonable distance from her, standing up very straight, by the bed. "I'll be honest with you, Emma," he said, seemingly genuine but with a chuckle, "which I reckon in your line of work you don't see all too often. Let me answer that question of yours more carefully. I took you here because you were losing a lot of blood and needed help. The nearest hospital's forty minutes away and that seemed like a long trip with an unconscious woman in my arms. Foremost though, I took you _here_ , and not to the hospital, because I especially didn't want doctors contacting the police and asking questions. What did this to you? A man or an animal? That would have been up for debate and I'd rather there be no report of any such case around here."

Emma blinked a couple of times in disbelief. She was rather convinced, if she closed her eyes long enough and then opened them, she'd be in her bed, in that cheap untidy apartment she called home, and of course Killian's explanation and his solemn gaze on her would be nothing but a dream.

"Are you fainting?" He asked, marvelously calm.

"I don't think so."

"Shall I go on?"

"You said you didn't want reports of any such case _around here_." She remarked.

Killian smiled. This time, it wasn't exactly his stranger's smile but an inch more amused, an inch more wicked. "I always thought you were clever, Emma Swan."

"Do you mean that things like this have happened in other countries? In other States?"

"Yes. That's what I mean to say. The changes have been on an international scale, I'm afraid – although I do think North America is going to know some particular unrest in the next few years."

"Then how haven't we heard about it? How hasn't the press taken an interest in this?"

"Ah, you're just getting to the next reason why I took you here."

The glint in his eyes was playful yet not unserious. Emma's heart was drumming against her rib cage, her whole body cautious, her mind wild with indecision. _What's his game here, whose side is he on, can I trust him?_

"You're a journalist, Emma. And – I hope you'll entitle me to make such an educated guess – it's in your nature to investigate. So I took it, if I just let you off to simmer what had happened by yourself, surely, you wouldn't let it go –"

"Is that what you think you can convince me to do?"

Killian sighed inaudibly, adjusted his gaze on her. Again, despite herself, Emma felt that same fear coursing through her veins.

Suddenly, she realized just why Killian excited so much curiosity around town. It wasn't his mysterious ways or, really, anything he did.

It was just that feeling he produced in you, that feeling that said he was Otherness itself, alterity unmasked, strange, unknowable.

A ridiculous thought ran through Emma's brain. _Whatever kind he is, he and I aren't the same_.

"Tell me, Emma." He said. "When you're interviewing people, do you occasionally let them finish their sentences?"

Probably, he wanted to lessen her fear of him, to lower her defenses. Still, for reasons unfathomable to her, she resisted.

"Never mind." He exhaled. "What I wanted was a chance to talk to you. So you would get to hear the whole naked truth before you decided what you wanted to do with it."

"All right. Tell me."

Killian winced with exaggerated reluctance. "So soon? I mean, this _is_ going to rock everything you think you know of the world. I was thinking, first, I could make you some hot coffee, prepare the field a little, soften you up, make you more amenable to the thought –"

"You'll make me amenable to nothing such."

The smile on Killian's lips enlarged. _You want darkness, I'll give you darkness_. "What attacked you was a vampire." He said, no sugarcoating, true to his word.

Emma could think of nothing to do but stare back at him with that same intense, heat-laden silence.

Killian broke into a mischievous laugh. "Is that it? Aren't you going to faint? Ah, a couple of centuries ago, girls would faint when you told them something like this. These were the good old days. And it's exactly why I prefer modern women. Nothing shocks you. Nothing's too vile to be put into words."

"Are you serious?"

"Oh, what do you think?"

Emma actually thought him to be extremely serious. The silence between them was too thick for words.

"Good." Killian said, after a moment.

"Good?" Emma echoed.

"That you don't scare easy. And that you know I've told you the truth – that you can trust me."

The air filled with nerve-prickling wariness and hostility. How could she trust him, when every fiber of her being told her not to?

"You'll learn." He said, penetrating her thoughts once more. "Eventually. You'll have to. After all," his smile flashed like a slice of moonlight, "your whole race and I have a common enemy. Worse friendships have been built over lesser things. Don't you think?"

…

 **End Notes** : Please let me know your thoughts and ideas as always ;-).


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Castle at the Edge of Town

Killian watched as Emma took in the news, trying to process it but finding that her reason unbendingly rejected it. It was probably a lot like swallowing a knife and hoping your body might digest it soundly.

"Vampires," she repeated.

Her attitude was lovely, tentative but calm, as if she were talking to someone unpredictable, a child or a lunatic. _That's the heart of it_ , Killian thought. _She has no idea how to address me, what she's dealing with_.

"You're trying to convince me that what attacked me was a vampire? That _you're_ a vampire?"

"Absolutely not," he answered. "I don't care for convincing people. You're a smart girl, Emma. You know, _your body_ knows, that I'm not human."

Emma clenched her jaw, unable to deny this.

"I'm only suggesting you trust your instincts," he said, even though they were most certainly telling her he was dangerous.

He _was_ dangerous. It was only fair that she should know this.

"But I'm being rather rude," Killian added. Though he'd taught his smile to look charming, he saw Emma tense nonetheless. "This must all feel very surreal to you, waking up in a strange room, bleeding all over my bed."

Emma's cheeks colored, her gaze still sharp with defensiveness and caution. She didn't take her eyes off him.

"And I haven't even offered you something to eat," he said, admittedly teasing.

It was wrong to toy with Emma Swan's feelings.

But she was looking at him in such a way, as if she were an unlucky girl who'd wandered into the cavern of an ogre, but who was willing to fight him with her final breath – modern women, heaven praise modern women – it was hard not to behave accordingly, not to adopt a _villain's_ game.

Without further ado, Killian got on his feet. However fun it was to watch the young woman's delightful reactions, he was careful not to move too fast, not to unsettle her.

"Come," he suggested, extending his hand towards the bed without thinking. "I'll give you a tour of the house. Give your wound a proper cleaning. Then maybe something sugary to strengthen you up. You've lost a lot of blood."

Emma didn't shrink back from the hand he was offering, but he could sense her reluctance, her natural disgust at the mere thought of his touch.

Of course.

Inter-species contacts weren't especially favorable, and why shouldn't humans intuitively recoil at the contact of beings that were lethal to them?

Emma wouldn't thoughtlessly take his hand any more than she'd pet a snake or a spider.

How simple, Killian thought. Innocent, even.

But fear, even disgust, could turn into want. Killian had been around humans too long not to know for sure.

"Forgive me," he said, retreating his hand compliantly. "I forget the rules of your kind. It's normal to be afraid, Emma, but you should let me know right now – what's to happen? Two options. Your choice. Do you go home, trying to forget as much of this as you can? I can help with that. Or," he tried to stifle a smile, "do you continue down that road to see where it takes you, where it's taking the whole wide world? Soon, the human race won't have a choice but accept the new order that's coming, but you could have a few more peaceful months, maybe even years. What will it be?"

Naturally, Killian knew the answer before he needed to ask. Had known, from the first glimpse he'd gotten of Emma – the sharp-eyed blonde at the library – that she wasn't the kind who tolerated for secrets to stay buried.

"I want to know," she said, her voice no longer frightened but somewhat awed. "As much as I can. Everything there is."

He smiled. "Then follow me."

…

At the edge of town, just beyond the sign that read: Welcome to Storybrooke!, there was an odd, remarkable house that had always gotten the town people talking.

The house didn't only stand out because of its size but its distinctly gothic architecture. Really, it was a _castle_ , built of dark-grey stones that shaped high towers and turrets, surrounded by a wrought-iron gate whose steep, arrow-like tips alone discouraged drunken or curious visitors. Just outside of Storybrooke, where the most impressive building was possibly the town library, such a house was bound to be noticed.

The estate, bordered by one of the splendid forests of Maine, looked oddly out of time. You could glimpse at it and feel both liked it'd appeared out of nowhere, and strangely like it'd always been part of the landscape, old as the great oaks that surrounded it.

" _You_ live here," Emma said, as Killian led her through the unlit halls. Killian was walking fast enough that Emma could barely make out the luxuriousness of her surroundings. Looking around her while following her host, battling the ambient obscurity with the light of her cell phone, she sometimes caught the gleam of a golden chandelier, shivered at the frozen gazes of painted pictures on the wall.

Killian had offered a candle and had sighed when she'd pointed out there was a flashlight ap on her cell. "How times have changed," he muttered.

And how could she argue, when everything about this place and about _him_ , seemed to have existed always, unbothered by the ages?

"The castle at the wood border," she said, couldn't help herself from stating the obvious. "People in town said that the owner lived abroad. That it was vacant most of the year."

"Not completely untrue," Killian answered without interrupting his walk. "I do travel. Wander about. But this is my home, I couldn't leave Storybrooke out of my sight for too long without risking –"

He turned back around. Emma caught the flash of his sharp teeth when he smiled "Well. All in good time. You've had a night full enough of surprises as it is, I should say."

The corridors they passed through seemed to stretch into infinite darkness. Emma had the odd impression of arteries leading to a heart. The rooms about her, shielded by the dim atmosphere, felt somewhat _organic_ , breathing with mysteries, as if the castle was alive, a stone reflection of its owner.

"Where are we going?"

"We're almost there."

Emma's chest tightened with cautiousness.

Still with his vague answers. _Follow me._ Trust _me._ She could hear the soft demands in his velvet voice, was unsettled by the contradictory emotions it enticed within her.

Emma had liked Killian before she really knew him, and now that he had saved her life and opened up a world of secrets for her, she should like him more –

But her body and mind resisted the soft stroke of his voice.

It was the knowledge, deep in her bones, of how easy it would be for him to kill her. No effort at all. No explanation. Not that he'd _want_ to. But there is always fear in looking directly at something that could be the death of you.

Being near Killian was very much like staring at the whirling waters at the end of a steep precipice, like standing at the mouth of a gaping abyss whose might alone compels you to silence, only allows you to watch from a safe distance.

The word _vampire_ , laden as it was with glamorous Hollywoodian meaning, failed to cover the full depths of what Killian was.

Animal or force of nature, friend or predator, magic or man.

A conciliation of extremes and contradictions.

"There," Killian stopped after pushing open a door that Emma thought must be heavy enough, fortified wood – not the sort you could kick down even if you were two hundred pounds of muscle – yet there was no trace of exertion on his face.

Emma stepped in and discovered a vast dining room. It was still difficult to see in the dark, the table a long glimmering surface of a wood that looked somewhat red. Though the lighting confirmed to Emma the house wasn't electricity-free, it was dim enough that the details of the room disappeared in every corner, that the young woman could only get a raw image.

"Isn't it just direct sunlight that's bad for your kind?"

"All light's the same." He answered, matter-of-factly. "Aggressive. Uncomfortable. Makes us irascible. Though I've never seen a vampire catch fire at sunrise – that was a _Nosferatu_ addition."

"Right."

Emma took a seat on a chair whose frame was wooden, delicately carved. For a moment, Killian remained standing, watching her with visible amusement.

"What?"

"Nothing. I don't get many visitors."

Of course, the strangeness of their situation wasn't lost on her. Before tonight, they'd never spoken more than a few words to each other.

"Hungry?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Something to drink then?" He chuckled as a shiver ran down her spine. So used to fear he could probably smell it. "I'm not offering anything extravagant. Tea? Coffee?"

"Do you actually drink this?"

"Occasionally." He shrugged. "Don't humans smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, consume any number of products their bodies aren't meant for? Speaking of alcohol, I've got a 1787 Chateau Margaux in there somewhere. Should I open it?"

Nothing could make this evening stranger than for Emma to drink a two-century-old bottle of red wine with Killian, the brooding stranger from the library.

"Why not?" She said.

Emma stared at her hands as Killian went to fetch it. On the side of her palm, just below the thumb, there were two tiny red spots that her brain refused to acknowledge as blood.

Before she could look up, before she heard him move or open any cabinets, Killian was standing behind her, extending a wine glass filled to the brim. The deep scarlet shade of the liquid momentarily beguiled her.

 _It's only wine_ , she thought, but there was no helping it. Now, it didn't feel as if even the most ordinary things would feel quite normal again, and human food – when it was offered by a vampire – certainly wouldn't have the same taste.

"You're not having any?" She met his eyes inquisitively.

The smile on his lips made her feel like a callow student. "Not tonight," he only answered.

He took a seat, not on the chair immediately next to hers but putting enough space between them that it should feel reassuring.

How swiftly could he break it, how soon could his arms be around her waist and his face in her neck?

"The wine should make you feel better," he said, as if it were a magical charm whose potent effect he was perfectly acquainted with. "While you drink, I'd like you to read this."

He dropped a neat stack of papers in front of her – Emma immediately identified them as press clippings. Just looking at the material, she could tell not all of it was recent.

"How old are these?" She selected a few pages.

"The 1870s. That was a rough time for us – the war had reawakened certain instincts."

Emma's eyes skimmed the article, then she went over every page and the same words always stood out. Animal attacks, mutilated corpses, with not a single drop of blood left in their bodies.

One of the articles only dated from two weeks ago. "This was in Portland," Emma said, looking back at Killian. "It's not even a couple of hours away."

"No."

"Why didn't I hear about this?"

"Earlier, you asked me how come people weren't talking about this. If there are so many more attacks now, why aren't they making the front page? Well, look at those articles again, Emma. You'll notice how few of them there are. There's no set up, if that's what you were thinking. The government isn't trying to keep the people in the dark. My condolences to conspiracy theorists. The truth is much simpler."

Emma actually thought she was on the verge of guessing, just based on how people around town reacted to Killian. Talking about him, certainly, spreading rumors like any gossipy town would – but really, the things that were being said about him didn't try to unravel his mystery so much as it provided easy explanations for his odd behavior – excuses.

Even that castle, which its anachronical allure, which looked as out of place as a witch on a broomstick in a moonlit sky. Sure, it looked frightful enough to dissuade you from approaching, but how come, in all the years it had been there, no one had ever thought of asking questions about the owner, that not one dauntless teenager had come knocking on Halloween night?

"People forget, don't they?" Emma said.

Killian greeted her answer with a smile. "I do love a woman that can keep up with me." He said this on such a casual tone that Emma couldn't even think of blushing. "Yes, Emma. They forget."

"How –"

"Not all humans. And not all to the same degree. See," he sighed, looking for an example, "just last week, I caught a young man trying to steal a fourteen-year-old's cell phone and pocket money. Nothing too harmful, but I'm not fond of bullying. I showed him my teeth."

Somehow, Emma's blood ran cold immediately, the mere mention spreading goosebumps down her arms.

"Well," Killian shrugged. "Both kids ran as if their lives depended on it, yet I dare say neither of them said anything about it to their parents, or even to their best friends or juvenile diaries, wherever they usually lay their secrets to rest. If I were to run into these kids again, they'd look at me the same way they always have – cautious, curious and a little frightened. Like you're looking at me now."

There was no air in Emma's lungs for her to protest.

"Most people who see something supernatural," Killian resumed, "will find the memory of the occurrence decreases with every passing second. Soon, all that's left is the impression of a faraway dream."

Though Emma admitted the remembrance of tonight's attack was certainly dreamlike, she didn't think she could have ever dismissed it as a nightmare – even without the gaping wound in her neck as a reminder.

"Physical evidence is no obstacle to forgetting," Killian said, as though reading her mind. "You could have only wrapped a scarf around your neck every day until the scar was discrete enough to go unnoticed."

"Then how come some people do remember? How come they write articles, even articles that everybody forgets about?" Emma swallowed through her dry throat. "How did you know _I_ would remember?"

"Do you know that most people who witness an attack will just stand by without showing a reaction?" Killian raised his shoulders. "Why do some resist the odds, why do some members of the human race stand out to become virtuosos, why aren't you all one bland ensemble? Diversity, Emma. It's just the way of your kind – and mine." He paused before answering her last question, "I knew you were different from the first, just in the way you looked at me. I don't mean the fear," he smiled, "which is natural to your species. But most eyes I meet turn from me after a mere few seconds. They see something striking about me, something they can't put their finger on, and they turn away to forget it all the sooner. You hold my gaze. You can look at me and smile and wish me a pleasant evening." He sighed. "Obviously, I realized you wouldn't just forget about last night and go on with your life."

"Then why did you save me?"

The question slipped past her lips before she could help it. Killian looked back at her, very much serious. "We can talk about this later."

Already, Emma could see he wasn't only a mystery, but a riddle within a riddle – a vampire saving human beings.

"You should drink your wine, Emma, and try to sleep. I can take you home, if you like. Your mind's been unhinged enough for one night. Don't worry," he added, before she could protest. "I know there's still much for me to tell you. But there's still time – not much of it, but enough for you to get some rest. I'll be back to see you."

The way he framed this wasn't lost on Emma – not a question or a demand, but as if there was simply nothing else for them to do.

She supposed there wasn't.

From now on, no matter whether either of them wished it, she could see their fates were intertwined. It made no difference that she couldn't yet understand why.


	4. Chapter 4

It was six thirty a.m. by the time Emma got home. She was just on time to switch off the clock when it started ringing. Right now, on a normal day, she would be getting ready for work, jumping in the shower, brushing her teeth and taking a coffee to go instead of breakfast.

But this was no normal day, of course.

Emma dropped her purse on her bed and sat down, unsure what to do next.

Killian hadn't gone further than the doorstep of her house, as if held back by an invisible line. He'd smiled at her, before she could say anything – ask him in for coffee, out of politeness, maybe just out of social habit.

"Lesson number one," he said, charmingly, though not charming enough to stop a shudder of natural repulsion and fear from creeping down her spine. "Think twice before you invite someone inside your house, Emma."

For a second, she was clueless as to what he was talking about. She glanced at the door – her hand was wrapped around the handle – and back at the stranger in front of her. "You can't come inside? If I don't invite you."

"Not as easily. It's better to be on the safer side of things – don't you think?"

Emma didn't ask, what the rule was precisely. And she didn't ask _why_ she shouldn't trust him inside her home. Her body knew why, reminded her constantly.

"Have a pleasant day, Emma." He said, and with that, walked away into the darkness, which was already breaking into a red-and-black dawn, the sky cracked up with bleeding flashes of light.

Once inside her room, sitting alone at the edge of her double bed, all the possibilities that shot out in front of her started coming to life in her head. Going to work, pretending none of this had happened. Calling in sick, switching on her computer, drinking in all the knowledge she could – be it Hollywoodian glamor or ancient folklore – about vampires. Calling her friend Graham from the police department and getting a list of every missing person, every strange accident or murder that had somehow not been dug into.

In the end, Emma was too tired to follow any thread through to the end.

Without bothering to take off her clothes – she'd fortunately kicked off her shoes in the entry hall – or to sneak under the covers, Emma lay down, a horizontal line across her blue bedcover, and fell asleep immediately.

There wasn't time for thoughts or to rehash the extraordinary events of yesterday evening.

A phrase shot through her brain, just before sleep dragged her into its hold – _sleeping like the dead_ – and she was off, as simple as that, a smile half-shaped on her lips at the ironical thought.

…

Killian wasn't filled with regrets when he returned home, wandering about the unlit halls of his castle. Regrets weren't for his kind. If even the slightest part of him believed he'd done the wrong thing, sparing Emma's life, it would be all too easy to correct it – lurk about her house until she came out for air, still so full of dark wonders from that pandora box he'd opened up for her, he could probably taste its magic in her bloodstream.

What a journey that would be. A taste of Emma's essence – even just a taste. No point in pretending he hadn't thought about this, even when she was just the nice-and-unafraid library girl, smiling politely at him from her latest read. But that was a journey Killian hadn't taken in a long while.

Drinking human lives.

What blood revealed about people was extraordinary, to vampires – incomparable to the feeding process of a human being. Their fear is a touch of sweetness. Their loves and dreams and expectations gather into a unique fabric that intoxicates your mind as the rich liquid glides down your throat. You know _precisely_ what you're taking from them. Their death is the price of your eternal life. It's only fair that, as you feed from the blood streaming in their veins, the taste should be a blend of heaven and hell.

Over the centuries, Killian had gotten good at weathering all temptations. Ironically enough, he had been able to find humans who could relate to his situation. Of all people, he found that monks, or religious people who followed an ascetic lifestyle, weren't so different from himself – renouncing immediate pleasures for the sake of an untainted soul, reaping the benefits in the afterlife.

The main difference – non-negligible, he'd grant you that – was that Killian wasn't hoping for a resurrection in some holy kingdom of light. This life, flawed as it was, was all he would ever get. Immortality. His curse and blessing rolled into one.

Killian made his way to the kitchen, which looked austere in its utter absence of smell, the immaculate cookers that hadn't been made use of in centuries. He opened the fridge, empty but for the neat pile of blood bags on the last shelf. The supplies were running thin. He'd need to stop by the butcher's again.

Musingly, Killian grabbed one and walked back to the dining room. The wine glass Emma had drunk from was still on the table, still half full.

Killian smiled and, thoughtlessly, poured the contents of his blood bag in that very glass, inhaling the smell of wine and Emma's lips when he carried it to his mouth.

Much like there were no tormenting thoughts as to whether Killian ought to have saved Emma, Killian felt no qualms concerning the fact that he was about to draw the young woman into a world whose horrors went beyond what she could probably imagine.

"The world is going to change," Killian said the words out loud, in the vast and empty gloom of his dining room.

Samael, the vampire who had attacked Emma earlier tonight, had spoken the truth. War was coming, and Killian could not preserve the town of Storybrooke forever. Soon, it wouldn't be enough to claim it as his territory, even though Killian was undoubtedly still feared in the vampire world. It had worked for a while, and Killian had enjoyed those few decades of peace. When he had exiled himself from his kingdom, relinquished his birthright and his title, turned his back on the aristocracy just when he was expected to take the throne – Storybrooke had been there, a miracle of quietness, filled with common, uncomplicated people.

Killian hadn't meant to settle there but, quickly enough, it became obvious that there was nothing else for him to do. Storybrooke became his home and his weakness – the one thing for him to care for and shelter. He could have ruled the world as a vampire king, and instead he'd chosen to retire in some God forsaken town where nothing of importance seemed to happen.

And, when Killian started to get to know these people, to watch them, even from the outside, because he could never mingle with them, _be_ one of them –

It became clear enough that Killian had picked his side. That this is willing exile was about more than just wanting to stop killing humans.

He _loved_ humans.

As he drank from Emma's glass, the flavor of blood and wine in his mouth, he thought his fondness for them was greater now than ever.

How long should he wait, before he came back to the young woman's house? She needed her rest, but he could let her sleep soundly while only peering through her window, in the darkness –

The thought drew a deep chuckle from his throat, his lips breaking into a red grin. "Will you look at that," he said to himself.

Half a century he'd spent, resisting temptations, subsisting on animal blood, refusing to give free reigns to his passions, to let himself become like the rest of his race, marked by gluttony and primitive desires – refusing to allow the beast in him to rule him any longer.

"Don't lower your guard now," he said, licking his lips after finishing his wine. "You'll never be sober enough for that animal to be buried for good."

That was true.

Old passions could come to life, reawaken in the blink of an eye.

Killian remembered the golden shine of Emma's hair, when he spotted her at the library – the bewitching candor of her quiet smile.

It was really a good thing she hadn't invited him inside.

…

 **End Notes** : Please share your thoughts and throw in ideas. It makes the story so much more alive.


	5. Chapter 5

From the luxurious satin-sheeted bed of her hotel room, Reginal Mills gazed in silence at the two men in front of her. Despite the casualness of her position and attire, and the informality of the meeting place itself, you could not use another word to describe the authority conveyed by the woman than 'majestic'. The abyss-blackness of her thick hair, perfectly straight, reaching down to the middle of her back, smooth as the blue robe that covered most of the white flesh that, even where it lay exposed and naked, didn't suggest vulnerability.

Monarchs, men and women alike, usually resent being caught off guard, in unceremonious dress, narrowing the gap between themselves and the subjects they govern – but nothing of the sort was taking place here.

Reginal Mills, half-sitting in a hotel bed, looked more royal than any woman might were she superbly dressed and erect in a diamond throne.

"I apologize, my lady, for interrupting your rest."

Samael spoke to her with an air of referential respect. The man standing next to her, Adam Gold – whom amongst the lower classes of the vampire world, Regina knew, was called "Rumpelstiltskin" – didn't speak at all, but there was less defiance in his silence than in Samael's polite greetings.

Something about Samael _himself_ – was it the shine in his reptilian eyes, the inclination for grinning that you could make out at the edge of his lips – was insolent by nature.

Regina wouldn't think of taking it personally, although she mistrusted the vampire politically and privately disliked him.

Maybe it was only something about him was _too much_ like Killian – his old friend and sovereign. If Regina remembered well, for many centuries, the pair had been – what was the colloquial term for it? – _thick as thieves_.

"By all means," Regina excused him.

She glanced vaguely at Rumpelstiltskin, who stood very straight, with his hands behind his back, looking a little peculiar as always, short as a goblin, but earnest in the face, and eyes careful not to let on the knowledge that ran deeper than an ocean behind his large forehead.

"But if you love your queen, gentlemen, you'll be to the point."

The two men needn't nod their agreement. It had been a long journey to Maine – Regina had just flown in from Europe – and she hadn't yet had her dinner.

"The matter is I saw your brother," Samael began, "just a few nights ago."

"I expect you might." Regina answered without surprise. "Killian's made it clear he views Storybrooke as his territory." A faint pout of disgust made its way to Regina's painted lips. "He's touchy as an old dog when we come hunting too close to it."

"Well, I just thought you should be aware there have been some… developments, as far as the prince's allegiance goes."

Silence filled the room. Regina felt annoyed Samael needed to be prompted – it had been a long while since she'd enjoyed theatricality. Film adaptations of the vampire myth had ruined it for her.

Finally, she condescended to arch an eyebrow.

The smile on Samael's lips at her implicit impatience was utterly hateful.

"Of course, your brother's reluctance to feed on humans for the past half century is no news."

"Then why don't you tell me something that is?"

"That he deprives himself of human blood is one thing – but that he would officially take their side rather than stand with his kind is another."

The breath Regina would have required for an angry sigh was held tightly between her teeth. "I _pray_ you, be more precise."

"When I saw your brother, he denied me a human."

Regina resisted showing surprise. This was a new low, even for Killian.

"He _stopped_ you from feeding on a human?"

Samael was visibly pleased at her response. "Correct."

A vampire's freedom to feed on anyone he saw fit – barring special cases when a human was marked by a vampire as his personal prey – was such a basic right that Regina couldn't picture anyone, let alone a member of the royal family, outlawing himself so grossly.

Of course, it did happen for two vampires to _fight_ over a meal.

"I don't expect," Regina said without hope, "that he fought you so he could eat the human himself?"

"If that had been the case, a fight wouldn't have been in order. I would have obviously yielded her to my prince if it had been his will." Though Samael was trying to look grave, the ghost of a smile was looking very much alive on his lips. "But I'm afraid the matter is even worse."

"Oh?"

"After what had taken place, I remained in Storybrooke for a few nights."

"Storybrooke." Regina echoed. "So, you were hunting on my brother's grounds."

Samael wasn't bold enough to ignore this but passed it off with a handsome smile. "The matter of the fact is, Killian actually saved the human – not just by interrupting me, I mean. He took her with him."

"Where?"

The peak of sharpness in Regina's tone was no doubt another personal victory to Samael. The vampire shrugged, visibly impassive. "As far as I can tell, home. This castle he keeps, at the edge of town. I'm sure he gave it a name, now what –"

"Castra Regis."

It was the first time since the beginning of the interview that Rumpelstiltskin opened his mouth. Samael darted a glance at him with momentary disdain – one no more unnatural than a human would feel looking at a particularly ugly insect.

"Yes, I think that's correct."

"Well." Regina resumed. Stopping her hands, folded in her blue-satin-clad lap, to start toying with one of the rings on her fingers – bored, probably, but Samael was vain enough to interpret it as nervous. "And what can you tell me about the human?"

"Some. I like to follow my preys for a few days –"

"You can spare me the trivia."

Samael collected his dignity as if it lay on the floor, practically undamaged. "Her name is Emma Swan. She works as a journalist for _The Herald_. Blonde. Plain but pretty."

"How tragically common."

"I agree." Spoken with respect. "I only thought you should be advised."

In other words, thought Regina… don't shoot the messenger.

"Thank you for your pains. Now, if you'll excuse me, I would like to see Adam alone."

Samael looked at the man in question – he had heard him spoken of so much as _Rumpelstiltskin_ , it felt as strange now to hear his real name, as it would to see an inanimate object break into a wild dance.

Some names stick to the skin like vice sticks to the soul, and Rumpelstiltskin was just one of those. Samael couldn't even say _where_ the nickname came from –

 _Maybe it's just that the man really does look like an imp_ , he thought, before respectfully bowing to Regina and taking his leave.

The vampire queen contained her sigh until he had left the room. "Jesus. How this man annoys me."

Silence prevailed, unbroken though unembarrassed. It wasn't Rumpelstiltskin's habit to talk when unrequired.

Possibly, surprised at hearing the queen speak the worshipped name of the Christian idol – this had started out as a jest between she and Killian, back in their early days, after they decided it would be a fun idea to infiltrate a circle of regular church-goers. They had taken to blasphemy as a sort of game, at first, but the habit proved tough to stifle.

Nostalgia hit, warm and sweet-smelling of the days of their golden childhood. Back when her brother and herself only had for duty the vague implication of endorsing the throne, should anything happen to their ruling father.

Regina, as the elder, was always going to inherit the title, but viewed her royal duties in the distant future. Her father, after all, had ruled for the past four centuries and might still for another four.

Of course, rumors abounded, as rumors will, when her father expired, that she had had a hand in it. Just as it was said amongst the rabble that she had driven her brother away – had poisoned him, somehow, and made him mad, to ensure he would never be a contestant to the throne.

Like most conspiracy theories, those concerning Regina were logical enough and passionately promoted, though unfounded.

Regina had loved her brother, and would have much preferred to rule with his counsel than to have his actions reported to her in this fashion, as if he were a common criminal.

Not that there was anything wrong with her _current_ advisors, she thought, her abyss-black eyes sweeping over Rumpelstiltskin. Sure enough, they were competent, but it would be nice to have one she knew for sure she could trust.

In the end, her brother had proven most unreliable than all.

"What do you think of this business?" She asked.

True, domestic issues weren't Rumpelstiltskin's specialty – at least, it wasn't what he was paid for, although he never complained of sharing his opinion. As Rumpelstiltskin had been her father's main foreign policy advisor, it had seemed natural to give him the same responsibilities, but Regina had soon found that Rumpelstiltskin was a man you'd rather keep close to you than have abroad. He still led the same department, but he did it from the States, and sometimes escorted Regina when she herself travelled, which had been the case for her last trip to Europe.

Rumpelstiltskin, Regina reckoned, was the sort of man that ensures a ruler makes wise decisions. The sort of man who'd be a good king if he were better born, but who was far too intelligent to let on he was bitter.

Still, you couldn't trust a subject who'd make a decent ruler.

And you couldn't surround yourself with people would _not_.

"I think," Rumpelstiltskin said, "your brother has picked the wrong timing to stand with the humans."

Regina exhaled, a long breath of disgust. "We aren't _actually_ at war with humankind. Those who say so are cocky pricks like Samael. I could never understand why Killian liked him."

A mere bow of the head served for Rumpelstiltskin's answer, who was much too political to say Regina's brother, before his strange conversion fifty years ago, was a bit of a cocky prick himself.

"I didn't use the word _war_ , my lady." Rumpelstiltskin remarked. "But there has been a move to more open violence with humans, even amongst the highest ranks of your court. As you have chosen to refrain from condemning those actions, your subjects have naturally interpreted this as a royal permission."

"Well, what would you have had me do?"

Spoken without irritation. Though proud, Regina had never allowed her pride to blind her – had read of too many rulers whose mind was like a golden box, utterly opaque, so they could no longer even see the real world, lost touch with everyone around them. A dangerous road to take. Miserable fates had awaited them.

Regina sat up a little straighter. Smooth hair gliding down her chest like black snakes. "No ruler who's sat in my throne's ever gotten out of such a situation. Believe me." He did; knew Regina was the kind to do her homework. "If it had been isolated incidents – or riots. That can be taken care of. But respected members of my court who just start breaking millennia-old traditions... Feeding on humans with no precautions. Taking us to the place where we might tear the veil between our worlds – endanger the very structure of our government."

"Samael among them," Rumpelstiltskin remarked softly.

Regina couldn't think of what for. Perhaps it was his way of showing his distaste for the man, and she needed little invitation to show hers in return. "And he has the gall to show up here and act like he respects me."

"You technically allowed this behavior when you didn't outlaw it."

"That would have meant executing half the members of my court." Regina shook her head. "What could that have led to but revolt – or as my brother would have called it, mutiny?"

Killian had spent a near century on a ship, amongst humans, back when he was transitioning to adulthood. Never as a captain, which had gotten Regina to chide him, although he always responded with the same unwavering grin – "The fun of it is to be with the people, Regina. All our lives, we've been so sheltered, talking with dukes and barons and ministers. Awfully tedious. The _people_ are those who have the most fun – those who really put things as they are. Oh," he added, eyes gleaming a devilish blue, "and I do enjoy spreading the seeds of dissent among them. Turning them against their masters. You'd be surprised how quick sailors are to mutiny. Especially when a mysterious beast is eating a couple of them every week." Killian was laughing by then. "It's lucky, Gina, that you're the one who's to take father's place on the throne. As you see, I would have made a terrible ruler."

"Terrible," Regina had agreed thoughtlessly. "I might have to watch out for you."

The memory made her eyelids sink in despair – really. She ought to have always known it'd come to this.

"You're quite right," Rumpelstiltskin agreed. "Yours was rather a wise decision. Rulers always should avoid extreme measures."

"And now?"

"Now, you're faced with limited options. Either put an end to this little party – preach a return to more formal behavior as regards humans. No more carelessness. Fewer bloodbaths. Try slapping your subjects on the fingers. Be indulgent enough that they won't have to choose between rebellion and death, stern enough that they won't dare to rebel just to see where it takes them."

"And if they won't fall into line?"

"Your second option," he answered calmly. "Out of their chaotic rule-breaking, you make new rules. Institutionalize the killing of humans. Break the barrier between our two worlds which they have been throwing rocks at."

Regina sighed. He was right, of course. As things were, the human and the vampire worlds could no longer coexist in ignorance of each other – but turning the whole human race into servitude was not something you decided without deliberation.

"Other rulers," Rumpelstiltskin resumed, "are gradually coming to terms with that second option."

"Yes." Regina could not deny it.

Rumpelstiltskin admitted, "It will be slaughter. But at the very least, my lady, the slaughter will not be on our side. Sometimes, this is what it comes to."

A short while of silence, before Regina said, "Thank you for your counsel, Adam. I would like to rest, now."

His bow to her was no lower nor truly longer than Samael's, and yet, it seemed of a different nature. "Of course, my lady."

"Adam?"

He turned back to her shortly.

"This human girl my brother saved."

"Yes?"

"I'd like you to keep an eye on her."

"As you desire."

No more was said, but when she was alone, Regina found she could not get her brother out of her head. Those things he kept saying.

 _It's the people who interest me, Regina. The people._

"Damn him," she whispered.

How long could she delay taking a side in the matter, because she knew in her bones that her brother was bound to take the other?

…

 **End Notes** : I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Before you ask, yes, I'm aware of what a political turn this fic is taking, and yes, it was always part of the project. I borrowed the name "Castra Regis" from Bram Stoker's _The Lair of the White Worm_ , a forgotten novel of his which I can't say I recommend… But it has cool castle names ;). Please share your thoughts in the comment section. Criticism is welcome.


	6. Chapter 6

The ringtone of Emma's phone wrenched her brutally from sleep.

Someone screamed in the room and Emma sat up in a start and fell off the bed. Clothes on. Her eyelids sticky with overnight makeup.

"What –"

The familiar voice of her friend and colleague Neal on her answering machine was what answered, "Gee, Em, I hope you're lying dead in a ditch somewhere. It's been crazy at the office – everyone's worried. And Robin – well, you know Robin. Just _please_ , let us know you've been too busy puking from the flu to pick up your phone all day, all right? I love you, Em."

A mechanical beep signaled the end of the message and Emma's bedroom drank in the silence like a thirsty monster.

 _What am I doing here?_ Emma thought absurdly. There was nowhere more sensible for her to be than her own house, and yet, her environment didn't strike her as familiar, an air of dreamlike unreality coated its every corner, the smiling wardrobe, the silent bookshelves, the open window.

 _The window_.

Emma scrambled to her feet, not without a bit of drunken tumbling, and hurried to snap it shot, before she could think of why.

Outside, the sky was beckoning blackly at her, the silvery trace of moonlight a deceiving reassurance.

 _Did I sleep all day? Was I sick? Was I –_

For a moment, Emma was like lost into space, and a block of blackness obscured the events of the previous night.

Part of her did not _want_ to remember.

 _Soon, all that's left is the impression of a faraway dream_.

The voice in her mind wasn't hers, though she couldn't immediately identify whose it was –

"Killian." She spoke his name out loud.

Like she'd broken a charm, memories shot at her brain at once, and in her mouth, Emma tasted magic, the rich mystery of the man's name on her tongue.

Life – if her life had been reduced to one night's strange happenings – couldn't have done a better job flashing before her eyes if she'd been on the brink of death.

How she'd finished late at work, and how that strange man had appeared out of nowhere if not from the mist of dreams, his blood-lusting attack and then the castle, Killian's oddly quieting voice ( _the stranger from the library_ ), the wine, the press articles, the walk back home –

Emma realized she couldn't remember if they'd actually walked, or how they'd gotten back to her house.

The moonlight beaming from behind the window was enough for her to make out the hour-hands on the clock hanging on the wall opposite her bed. A quarter to ten.

 _But of what day?_

Before long, she had to sit down again. Dizziness came in hot waves, fluttering before her eyes like butterfly wings.

It was no good trying to remember her last meal.

The wine… There'd been Killian's wine, whose very thought – the rich, red taste – increased her lightheadedness.

 _And that window wasn't open when I fell asleep_.

 _After all that happened, I wouldn't have gone to bed with that window open_.

Now that it was shut, blocking out the indistinguishable chatter of the outside world, the ruffling of leaves and grass in the night breeze, there was only the madness of Emma's thoughts, the loud intrusion of her new reality.

"Monsters are real." She spoke to the empty room.

Somewhere in one of the neighboring houses, a lone dog howled its approval.

…

"For Christ's sake, Em –"

"Not now. Inside."

Emma didn't take the time to give Neal a better greeting, not so much as a peck on the cheek or 'Hi' before she ushered him in the house.

Although it was late – now half past ten – Neal had insisted he wanted to see her, when they'd spoken over the phone. Because he was worried or because she'd piqued his curiosity, she couldn't say or bring herself to care.

"Sit down."

They settled in her kitchen, where Emma had gotten some water boiling for tea – she was one of these rare tea over coffee persons – and where a panful of chicken breast was softly sizzling, filling the air with a delicious-meat aroma. Chicken was the fastest thing to cook which she'd dug up inside her perennially empty fridge.

It'd been ages since she'd eaten at home or had the time to go shopping.

"You ate?"

"Yeah." Neal answered her half-absentmindedly.

On some level, she could sense that he was cautious, how it wrapped thickly around his voice – what was he thinking of? Drugs? Yes, probably drugs. Most likely, it wasn't so clever for her to start binge-eating in front of him, but this was too strange a night for her to be much bothered by what he thought.

Food had never seemed more urgent than right now –

Unfortunately, the craving had started only after she'd hung up with Neal, and there'd be no time to do anything about it before he arrived.

Was it normal?

She didn't remember whether Killian had told her.

On biological grounds, it made sense; she'd lost a lot of blood, and she hadn't eaten in maybe thirty-six hours.

But there was something that felt _supernatural_ about that hunger. When she thought of Killian's eyes, and how they shone dangerously at her in the darkness of his castle… Strange, how well she could recollect every detail of their conversation, now, not just in a haze, but the precise color of each moment, the odd tones of his voice, and those sensations he awoke, a vivid blend of attraction and disgust.

 _Hush, Emma Swan_. _We'll meet again before long_. _Don't hurry down the rabbit hole yet – don't try to investigate what you can't understand_.

Oh, the black mysteries gleaming in his midnight voice.

"Emma?"

"Huh?"

"What happened to you?"

Emma had prepared herself for that question and yet, it unfolded too fast, before she was ready with an answer. For a moment, she and Neal stared at each other, over her pan of frying chicken, which made the whole situation _too real_.

If this were fiction, Emma thought, they'd be in a bleached room as clean as you only see on TV, the focus would be on the tension between the two friends, not the inexplicably attractive smell of food ( _meat_ ), and she'd manage to put more interest in Neal's question than on her growling stomach.

She had remembered to put on a scarf before Neal came here. The woolen material was hot and rubbing against her inflamed skin, the caked blood like a layer of cement over her neck.

Right now, she wished she could be sitting inside her bathtub and carefully running a wet cloth over the wound, which no doubt required a proper wash. There'd been no time, before Neal – she was too hungry. Maybe she shouldn't have let him come over tonight, but he'd been so worried on the phone, there was no way around it – he had to see her for himself, to get a clear idea just what crisis was at stake here.

The muddled look in his eyes shot her with a flush of pity, sudden and short-lived.

However impossible it was for him to grasp the absurd turn her life had taken, she realized she hadn't invited him here to lie to him.

"I was attacked."

Surprise washed over his features, maybe at her honesty – then, a few seconds of doubt. He was visibly at a loss as to whether to sound worried or angry – was that the time for him to break into a jealous rage? Wasn't it odd for boyfriends to suffer so possessively when their lovers were assaulted, as if their bodies were theirs to bruise as well as touch? And wouldn't this reaction look strange on Neal, who was hardly Emma's boyfriend –

There'd been no talk, yet, as to what their occasional inclination to sleep together meant for their relationship.

Emma cut the fire beneath the pan. The chicken had started burning.

"That's all I can tell you, Neal."

"Attacked how?"

"Refer to the above."

A raw sigh broke through his gritted teeth.

"Okay," she said.

It matters to mention she sounded calm – she had no patience for anger, tonight, hers or his.

"If you want to go and – I don't know, blow some steam, just show yourself out. I don't have to take this."

She sat up on her kitchen counter, wriggling her way between an empty fruit bowl and a spice set she never used, before she reached for a fork in the first drawer on her left and starting eating the chicken straight from the pan.

Burnt.

Naturally.

Neal was quiet for a moment. They had been childhood friends much longer than they had been lovers, and right now, she felt that's what they ought to be – eventually, she wanted to tell Neal about this, not so they could print it on tomorrow's front page ( _Vampires In Storybrooke!_ ) but because she and Neal always used to share their strange discoveries with each other as children. Big rocks that looked like dragon-eggs, mysterious holes which they could theorize to be the secret lairs of bandits, pirates. But not yet, not until she understood more of this world herself; until Killian had explained to her what his plans for her were.

Neal could be a good partner to foil them or carry them out, depending on whether Emma agreed with them –

Despite the fact that Killian Jones had saved her life, she could not bring herself to trust him, to think of him as a friend only –

Killian would never be a _friend_ , in the way Neal was. Someone she was completely sure of, whose very thoughts she could guess as they crossed his mind.

"Can I ask if you're hurt?"

"Nothing that'll stop me from going to work tomorrow. I'll apologize to Robin."

"Robin's going to want to _know_. It's his job."

"Then I'll tell him what I told you. I don't think he'll want to press me further."

Neal was silent for a moment, watched as she shoved one piece of chicken in her mouth after the other – this must look disgusting to him, and a little startling. Emma was startled herself.

Was it months, _years_ , since she'd eaten so much meat? White meat was the only sort she tolerated, but even so, she was seldom in the mood for it, had cursed herself while tossing expired chicken in the trashcan more than once. It wasn't only that Emma was alert to climate issues and animal cruelty.

True, she was the sort of journalist that made a point of reading the news, _all_ news, starting with the most disturbing. Disdain was all she felt for those who used the media as a sheltering bubble – the people don't have to be _aware_ of everything; why trouble them with women's rights in the Middle East, with the cities bombed in Syria? _Because it's the truth_ , she'd argue, but found it was a fairly lonely corner, that many reporters didn't think it was motivation enough that _something was the truth_. Scandal. Sensational. Now, these were the things to print, the things that people wanted to read, that meant big money. But not to Emma. Or, for that matter, to Robin. Emma had decided to work for him more because of what he stood against than what he stood for.

"I'm dedicated to the cause, Emma," he'd told her during her job interview. No need to call her 'Miss Swan'. They'd gone to Sunday school together.

"What cause?" She had asked.

"The only cause that's worth a damn. Standing up for the oppressed. Making people look at things from the point of view everyone would rather sweep under the table. If you take the job, you'll work hard, and you won't earn enough to make up for the extra hours. I can't ask you to do it unless you're committing yourself to something you already believe matters."

Of course, she'd been the right woman for the job. The handful of death threats Emma received each month was no deal breaker, was even a compliment as to the efficiency of the articles in which she denounced big corporations. Among those, the meat and dairy industries were prominent, but that wasn't the only reason why meat infallibly ended up forgotten at the bottom of Emma's fridge.

There was just something about it that sickened her. To consume the flesh of other animals.

But tonight, burnt as it was, the meat set loose undiscovered flavors in her mouth. It didn't satiate but fed the throbbing craving in her stomach.

Chicken wasn't what she wanted – but what? Red meat? Raw meat? The idea only increased her appetite for something _other_ , something untasted.

( _Oh God, what's happening to me, is it normal, is it forever_ –)

But a cool, kingly presence in her mind quieted her fears. She should not worry. She should wait.

All would make sense to her, in time.

Neal waited until she'd finished eating to resume – and Emma wished it would distract her from the persisting sensation of emptiness inside, the gaping mouth that wanted feeding.

"Are you going to press charges?" He asked.

She couldn't repress a chuckle. "I'm afraid that's out of the question."

"Okay. Well."

Awkwardness lay thick in his voice. Though it was silly to her that he couldn't behave normally around her – was it the attack, or was it because they'd slept together, because this event forced him to choose between adopting a friend's or a boyfriend's behavior – she took pity on him and said thanks for coming, but now she'd really like to be alone.

Neal was quick to accept this and after a few more minutes of uncomfortable chat, he went out, and Emma was free to scavenge the rest of her kitchen for all the food she could find.

Thoughts, which ought to have crossed her mind –

 _Am I turning?_

 _Am I on my way to becoming something unnatural?_

– bounced back against the newly-built wall in her mind, which seemed made of a frozen black sky, of the strange magic that gleamed in Killian's eyes.

She didn't ask herself why they were connected, why she could feel his presence inside her, like he could access every thought. What was more, she didn't wonder why it didn't scare her – why it imposed itself with unquestionable power.

 _Soon_ , the voice promised, _you'll know everything_.

Everything.

Emma accepted this, too.

Her life had tumbled over the edge of normalcy and drowned in a dark ocean of absolutes.

…

Neal walked home – although the situation with Emma had felt urgent, he hadn't taken his car; it would have taken him a good fifteen minutes to pull it out of the garage, drive to her place then look for a place to park, and their houses were only a ten-minute walk apart.

Hands buried deep in his pockets, eyes staring at the pavement, where his shoes walked past all sorts of specimens that looked strange in the moonlight – a chewed piece of cherry gum, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, more cigarette butts.

"I shouldn't have gone away."

Neal had picked up the habit of talking to himself young enough that to try and stop it was like trying to abolish thinking.

But Emma's news had made him so uncomfortable – the form as well as the content.

 _I was attacked_.

If she'd burst down in tears, he would have held her, would have stroked the honey-colored hair he liked so much, that glowed like sunshine in the summer.

Only she'd sounded calm – so calm, Neal hadn't known how to make himself useful.

"I shouldn't have left her," he said to himself, still.

If Neal could but know how to make himself boyfriend-material, he was sure Emma wouldn't reject him – Emma loved him, had loved him since they were kids. But boyfriends don't hurry back to their homes for a cool beer when their girlfriends tell them they were assaulted –

"Shit," he said, apparently to the pavement. "Shit, shit –"

"Are you hungry, sir?"

Neal's gasp of surprise was nearly a shriek.

The brutal halt in his walk caused him to tumble and, if it hadn't been for the streetlamp, just barely in his reach, he would have fallen headfirst.

So much for looking where you're going, but he hadn't been expecting to meet anyone so late.

What time was it? Somewhere near midnight by now – when he'd stepped out of Emma's house, he'd thought he heard a clock strike twelve.

Neal gathered his composure and raised his eyes to meet those of the black, imp-like figure before him.

Before Neal could even identify the man as strange, before he could pin the least impression on him, his arms broke into gooseflesh.

He was lean and short, so that the clothes on his back – a respectable suit, if Neal ever saw one – had a hollow air to them, like they might crumble into dust when you tried to touch them. A long, sharp nose, and eyes the color of thick black smoke, the sort that heralds fire and puts you on your guard.

"I'm sorry, sir," Neal blushed, aware that he'd been rambling aloud as usual. "I didn't see you there, I –" Then, the man's question flashed back in his brain, so absurd, he mustn't have heard him right. "What did you say?"

A lenient smile on the man's mouth, but one that didn't reach the eyes. "I asked, are you hungry?"

There it was again, and Neal wanted to laugh, was sure he _would_ have laughed if the man hadn't looked so serious, and if it hadn't been for that fresh image of Emma devouring chicken out of a burning pan.

"What?"

"Yes, maybe that's how I should have put it." Patience in the man's voice – tolerance. " _What_ are you hungry for?"

Absentmindedly, Neal noticed he wore his hair fairly long – as well as his fingernails, which was more surprising still.

Most strangely, Neal found that though he rationally wanted nothing more than to keep walking, something about the man's eyes – or was it his voice? – lulled him into obedience.

It would be very easy to tell that man the truth – like sliding into a warm bath, allowing your brain to disconnect.

"They call me Rumpelstiltskin, because I make the impossible possible. Tell me, my boy. We have time enough."

"There's a girl." The words squeezed numbly out of his mouth.

The smile on the man's face stretched into a grin – repulsive. Neal wanted to close his eyes but couldn't shake off the uncanny compliance that guided his responses.

"Of course," the man said. "And she shall be yours. You must come with me, first. If you knew what an honor it is I'm giving you, that you may be of service to her Majesty the Queen."

A ludicrous image of Elizabeth II popped into Neal's head. He knew of no other monarch than the Queen of England.

"The house you just left belongs to a young woman. Emma Swan."

"Emma."

"You'll watch her for me."

"Yes."

Betrayal never colored Neal's understanding of what was taking place – so easy to just drop his head into the water, to be guided by what the man said.

Inside her house, Emma took care to lock the backdoor as well as the main entrance and to shut the drapes on every window, but it couldn't bring her so much as an illusion of peace.

The first twenty-five years of her life had been like a long stroll in the daylight – sunny innocence and blind joy.

But night had come, and the ghoulish creatures of sleep were every bit as real as those of the old world – and they were surely getting closer, lurking behind windows and rapping at the door.

…

 **End Notes** : Please share your thoughts. Comments are welcome. Heartfelt reactions are the best ;)


	7. Chapter 7

Killian had to admit there was something sweet about this – when you thought about it, the very sweetness that for him defined humans.

At sunset, as he sat at the window of his bedroom, pulling aside the thick drapes, with a red-filled glass in his hand, he watched Emma Swan, sitting in her beetle-black car, at the edge of the woods that signaled the end of Storybrooke, the woods that recalled mystery and myth, prepared you, in a way, for the Gothic sight of Killian's small castle.

"Hasn't she done her homework?" He said, amused. "I'm the one who's supposed to be stalking her."

From that distance, Emma must have found it safe she'd be invisible from the castle. Sweet, almost touching, that she would play it like this.

Patiently, Killian finished his glass, waiting for the sun to be fully out before he slithered out the window, too quick for the naked eye, so that anyone looking would have only seen a thin thread of black smoke blending into the nightly mist.

A second later – but second is the wrong term for the fraction of time in which Killian went from the cool evening air outside to the space of Emma's car – he was sitting in the seat next to hers, and she was still watching out her car window through her binoculars, peering at any move from the castle. Did she think it was an enchanted place, that the stones would glow in the dark, or that at midnight fairies would pour out of its gates into the sky?

"You know, if you wanted to catch me indecent, Emma, you only had to ask."

The young woman not only startled but actually screamed – a sharp, tiny cry that was almost as much surprise as fear.

The binoculars jumped from her hands and somehow landed on the backseat. He noticed the purse on her lap because it rattled as she moved, its contents clicking and clattering. She smelled young and green and delicious – his little spy, thinking what worked on her human subjects would work on him.

"Jesus!"

"Tut-tut," he said, "no need to blaspheme."

"How did you –"

"One thing at a time. First, I'll tell you _why_ I did it."

He could not help but smile as she checked that her car doors were still locked, and looked back at him in bafflement –

The fear was there, too. The slightly sickened and awed gap he knew he opened up inside her heart.

 _Fear can turn to want_ , he thought again. She would be safer, he knew, if it did not.

"Emma Swan, you're used to being the one who asks the questions," he said, using his professorial tone, smiling still from ear to ear. He made himself comfortable, stretching his hands behind his head, while she watched with her wide eyes and slack jaw.

She wasn't used to this, being caught unawares, and it was wrong of him to enjoy it.

"Allow me to turn the tables on you," he said. "Why did I sneak in here, when I could have very well used the door, or at least rapped on your window to give you a more minor fright? Well?"

Emma clenched her teeth, picking up her collectedness fragment by fragment, trying to piece back her usual cool. "You wanted to show me how dangerous it was to do what I'd done, coming here."

"Smart girl. Yes, Emma, precisely."

"Now, will you tell me how you did it?"

"In a moment. First, I want you to tell me what made you so confident."

The teeth revealed by his grin elicited disgust as well as a strange attraction. He watched the mingle of both in her eyes, listened to the quickened pace of her heart.

"That's just me, love, but if I'd gotten a piece bitten out of my neck just a few days ago, I wouldn't be so eager to wander about at sunset."

Emma swallowed, before she opened the crammed purse on her lap. Its glimmering contents got him smiling all the wider.

"Well, what have we here? Stakes, holy water, crucifixes garlic – garlic, Emma? Really?"

"Hey, I documented myself as well as I could."

"Was it Buffy or Dracula?"

"Well, if you'd given me any answers yourself, I wouldn't have needed to speculate, would I?"

"You can send all of these back to whatever Halloween shop you got them from."

A hint of disappointment in her cinnamon eyes. " _All_?"

He dipped his hand into the bag and retrieved the large wooden crucifix, clenching it in his fist for her to see. "Same thing for the holy water, I'm afraid. I could drink that whole bottle in front of you, there wouldn't be much to show for it. Oh, it might tingle a little and taste sour – like if you ate an overripe fruit. But you'll need more than that if you want to take on a vampire and get so much as a serious reaction from him. Go on, now. Grab that stake."

Emma did as he asked, and a sparkle of want surprised him as he watched her holding it firm.

"Now, drive it into me."

A delicious blush rose to her cheeks, like he'd asked her to do something obscene.

"Don't be shy. Go for the heart – that's where they tell you to aim, isn't it? How romantic. You humans love to dress vampires up with shiny symbols. Faith in Christ annihilates us, to step inside a church would turn us to dust." He shook his head. "I doubt even Saint Theresa could do damage to even the weakest vampire through faith alone."

"Did we not even get one thing right?"

She shivered at the amusement on his lips. "There are weaknesses. We've talked about it – sunlight."

"That's all?"

"It's not bad. At least you know the people you run into in the light of day are harmless as can be – well, harmless as humans. Though vampires don't magically die from the light, it doesn't become us. It's irritable rather than harmful, but it dissuades most of us from venturing out. Most certainly, if a vampire were walking down the street in broad daylight, you could tell something was wrong with him – the same way a human wouldn't look exactly comfortable underdressed, in a temperature below zero degrees. That being said, that wouldn't have stopped one from getting to you so close to sunset, on an evening like this one. Not all days are the same. There are days with little light, some with no light at all. You should be careful, Emma."

On a more teasing tone, "Now, aren't you going to try and stake me? Sure?"

He couldn't resist a light chuckle as she lowered her stake. On second thought, it was for the best. She might have hurt herself trying.

"A human can't kill a vampire, Emma. It's not that I'm withholding things from you. I simply couldn't tell you in your words, give you any sort of explanation that makes sense to you." He shook his head. "Vampires are immortal creatures."

"So they can't die."

"No, that's not exactly right."

The look on her face was expectant.

 _She's afraid of me, but not allowing her fear to become her master._

"So, it's out of my reach." She said, still intent on learning. "But could you do it?"

"I have, in the past."

"How?"

The lightest tremor moved her bottom lip when she realized he isn't going to answer. How would he? Share the gruesome details of dismemberment, the cruel locking away of bodies in a sealed casket, or the driving to despair of an immortal so successfully that life will crumble away of its own, white dust carried away by the wind?

"All right, will you at least tell me how you got into my car?"

He sounded nearly impatient. "I slipped through the cracks. That's just it, Emma – vampires can get anywhere they want, anytime, so long as it's not your own house and they haven't been invited. You need to prepare the world for what's going to happen. You need to start telling the truth, for your kind to understand what's going to happen. I'm afraid it doesn't mean your people will stand a fighting chance. Resistance won't be impossible," he pointed out. "If you're prepared enough, you can create new modes of life, huge planes of private property where you invite no one, where you don't even get out. Everything would have to be local – the food you cultivate, the water you drink – and pass through such canals that are still part of somebody's house. There are such limits that might make you safer, if you start getting ahead of what's happening."

"And what sort of life is that?" She said, surprised him. "Living in some village-sized cage, while the whole world burns?"

He smiled, with something like nostalgia. "Yes, what kind of a life? Do tell me, Emma. I've watched your kind for years and years, still you must forgive me if my understanding is flawed. It's still a little foreign to me, what motivates you. I watch you go from one place to another, the streets, the libraries, the town shops, but that doesn't tell me much about your inner mechanisms. The way it looks to me, you're already confined to Storybrooke. Most of you don't take so much as a foot out of town for the main part of the year. What difference would it make, if your confinement was a little more official, if the gate stopped being invisible?"

A chuckle of disgust in her mouth. "You're talking about us like we're a different species. Rats in a cage."

Killian cocked his head to the side. "I wouldn't say rats. But as for the differences in our natures – I don't see how you could deny them yourself. You feel them, don't you?"

She let out a small cry as he got hold of her hand, the one that was holding the stake. There was no need for her to say the words. The inherent _wrongness_ of his touch was all over her face.

"Right now, it feels like a snake is coiled around your flesh. Your pulse is racing. Rationally, you know you have no reason to be afraid. I saved your life. I'm clearly on your side. But your body can't know this, will never accept my friendship. There's something in you, something that runs as deep as your bones, that knows my kind lives off killing yours."

"Yes, all right."

She moved to jerk her hand free and he was tempted to resist her – to hold on to that small wrist, for no reason he could think of.

His sister's voice in his head – her queenly, contemptuous baritone. _After all these years, keeping to the very edge of human life, a looker-on pacing around the fun fair but never actually going in for a ride – don't tell me you're actually tempted, Killian_.

Regina and he used to be so close, he could still hear her talking to him, sometimes, in his own mind.

She'd be wrong.

Killian used to take part in human life. It had been his first mistake, what led to his downfall. Joining up a crew when a ship was one sailor short, or infiltrating the small group of a social revolt, he had first been amused by the passion of humans, before finding out, too little too late, he had been seduced, also.

Was this happening, here and now, all over again?

It was the greatness of human ideals, as opposed to their small everyday lives, that had intrigued him.

Emma Swan was no revolution. Surely, she was no Paris 1848, no Ireland on the brink of Civil War. She was a sweet girl who used to smile at him and hold his eyes, when they ran into each other at the local library.

Killian released his hold on her hand. If his hesitation had been apparent, Emma made no mention of it – perhaps too shaken from the contact of his skin to pay attention to his eyes and the lurking desires that had flourished there for a moment.

"You see?" He said.

She nodded instead of an answer, smoothened the creases on her skirt – the weapons-packed purse had dropped from her lap as she moved away at his touch, but she made no immediate move to pick it up.

This was how she gathered her thoughts, collected herself, before she could think of what to do. It's what she would have done if he'd been her ride home and had tried to make a move on her.

"So," she said, still looking at the floral pattern on her skirt instead of him, "you're saying most of my race is going to die, and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"You can try to save this town, if you prepare them for what's coming."

He was surprised by her unconvinced laughter. She shook her head. "Storybrooke, the city upon a hill, the last vestige of humanity."

She moved her head and he felt something stir inside him at the crossroads of their eyes, like the resurrection of dead nerves and flesh that hadn't been so much as thought of in ages.

Though she hadn't said it, something in her tone and expression, the knowingness in her eyes, disarmed him slightly.

He hadn't explained to her his strange affection for human, what had first been considered eccentric behavior by the vampire world, before they finally thought him mad – like a human who would decide to shun society to favor the company of animals.

Yes, perhaps he was under a great delusion. Perhaps, he thought that by preserving Storybrooke, his small beloved human world, he could save something of humanity, and better tolerate the millions that would die at the hand of his kind.

It was not enough. But wasn't a handful of human lives better than none?

"What's so special about this town that we should get to live, and others should die?"

"You must spread the word. Act fast. One community will emulate another –"

"Who will take me seriously? Do you really expect me to walk up to my boss one morning and tell him I've got a story about vampires? You've said it yourself. Humans are made to forget."

"Not all humans," Killian looked away. "Yes, I suppose it's normal you should find something tragic in it – survival of the fittest. But it is the way of the world, Emma. Those of you who can remember us, who can learn what we are – they are those who'll survive. If the human race is to resist, then more and more of your children will be like you, will develop your capacity to see us for what we are. They'll adapt or die. I'm afraid nature doesn't deal in sentiment."

He watched, as Emma wrung her hands on her lap, her eyes fixed ahead of her, on his castle that you could make out in the distance, despite the obscurity.

He could sense, from her body language, that they were going to approach more personal ground. "Since what happened with that vampire, the other night. I've been feeling – not quite myself."

Yes, he had expected this would come about. He had no intention of lying to her.

"By biting me, did he – did he somehow…"

"Samael's not to blame for your recent behavior, I'm afraid. I am."

Her direct dark eyes latched onto his face.

"We're talking about a great hunger, are we not?" He said. "Your feeling like you could devour pounds and pounds of meat without being satiated?"

"Yes. It passed after a while, but I worried –"

"No need to worry. It won't be coming back. It was only your body craving what I gave you."

Understanding bloomed in her gaze, like a firework bouquet on a fourth of July. Somehow, in her state of shock, she forgot to sound angry. "Your blood. You gave me your blood."

"Yes." He waited a moment, apologetic but without regret. "There was no other option."

He expected she would plant her gaze anywhere from out the windshield to the blackening sight through her car window, anything to deflect from the stolen intimate act he was confessing to have willed her to during those drowsy moments of unconsciousness.

Funny how even a human with no notion of the vampire world would understand the sacredness of consuming blood – or being made to consume it.

It was betrayal. That look in her eyes, which she refused to lower.

The frontality with which she maintained his gaze, in the face of what he'd just revealed, surprised him greatly.

"Will it do anything to me?" She asked after a while.

What would be the point in heaping blame on him, in calling him disgusting – and yes, the idea must repel her, the thought that this being whose very contact she shuddered at had penetrated her bloodstream.

"In the long-run," she said, "will it change me?"

"No."

Then, she did close her eyes, in relief.

"I think I'll go home now."

"You probably should."

He didn't add that he would see her home. The evening had been charged enough that it was better to let her drive, alone in her car, to give her a moment to calm down, while he blended again with the night mist, and made sure that no unwanted visitor would follow her there.

Except from him.

…

 **End Notes** : Please share your thoughts and reactions in the comment section. See you soon!


	8. Chapter 8

Emma did not sleep well that night. It was the thought of Killian – really, the thought of his blood – that did the trick.

She got home shaken, after that odd, chilling talk in her car, right outside Castra Regis – she had looked up the name of his castle before she went there, dug up as much as she could of its history, as if information about the place would somehow shed light on the master of the house, delineate the shadowy outline of his identity.

Skipping dinner, Emma had gone straight up to her bedroom, which she also used as an office. It did little good trying to work. Polishing an article on the upcoming presidential race and its candidates, she could hardly force herself to think it mattered, what words she used, who her readers ended up voting for in the end. Would they even get to the race, she thought, to November 2020, anyway? By then, would the whole planet be torn asunder, World War III unfolding? No longer the blowing up of bombs and terror in the shape of fire weapons, but a great, great shadow stretching its dark wings over the globe, easing it in with its sweet sharp smile, black-as-night mist taking over the earth?

"Midnight forever," Emma whispered.

She shut the lid of her computer and went to bed. She was exhausted, and maybe there was yet the slightest chance that rest would lift the edge of that heavy black cloak that loomed over her.

Sleep, unfortunately, proved of no comfort.

In her dreams, Emma saw a marble white wrist, and a streak of blood beading down its surface. Then the formidable voice – _Drink it_. And she felt its coppery taste down her throat, her mind filled with awe-some wonders, her body floating in space.

Yes, only space was a fitting image for it, this vast field of empty blackness, a night sky with no moon, no stars, nothing but herself and that voice, infinite smallness lost in the stretches of infinity.

Then the hiss of a snake startled Emma – in her sleep, she let out a small cry, muffled by the bump of a pillow.

She lowered her eyes, and there it was, gleaming ebony scales, gliding up her body, and she couldn't speak from terror, couldn't scream from the potency of its beguiling spell.

The coldness of its touch, up her bare stomach – bare? – then her chest, until it was fully uncoiled, and sliding its face into her neck. She knew it was going to happen, that it was going to strike ( _bite_ ), and her heart went wild with anticipation, with dread and panic and _want_.

She screamed when the fangs cut into her throat, and it was the reality of that scream, its sudden tear into the fabric of night, that woke her up.

The sheets around her were soaked, and when she ran a hand over her face, she felt the dewy film of cold sweat that had settled there.

Before she could think, Emma rolled out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom, where she stepped into the shower cabin without bothering to take her clothes off.

A shiver shook her as the cold water hit her skin.

It was only then she realized she was on the brink of orgasm.

…

Killian only left Emma's window when it was close to dawn, shards of red bleeding into the sky and announcing, whatever you might read into the omen, that it was going to be a sunny day. Killian had not watched Emma sleep, as he had heard was the fashionable thing for a vampire to do in today's common understanding.

Instead, he had kept a close watch on the near surroundings of her house, keeping an eye out in case something strange should happen. Not that he believed another vampire was actually lurking around. Not right now.

Vampires could smell each other from a great distance, the unmistakable tinges of death blended with a scent sweeter than any earthly thing. Humans with their minds crammed with metaphors would speak of milk and honey, but of course the sweet smell was no more from heaven than from earth. Immortality.

Vampires had a scent both like death and the impossibility of dying.

A contradiction in human terms.

But as Killian was journeying home, and a sudden whiff of vampireness invaded his nostrils, he did not think of the paradox – had not been close to his little human long enough that he would think of viewing the world through her eyes as well as his.

Immediately, Killian stopped, recognizing the smell not only of a kindred being but of someone he was much familiar with. Like a car going full speed on the highway and suddenly crashing into the next, he spiraled down from the sky and met his rival, near the border of the woods that marked the edge of the village.

"Well, well."

The small figure stepped closer, cutting itself from its background of trees and earth, the green and brown both rendered a bluish black under the equalizing darkness of night.

Dawn hadn't reached Storybrooke yet, and under the thick canopy of leaves above their heads, it seemed it would be a longer while in reaching them.

"Ever a pleasure to see you, my lord."

"Rumpelstiltskin."

The old vampire grinned, the very political smile that had sickened Killian away from politics.

"What are you doing here? A few nights ago, I had to kick Samael out of Storybrooke. Now you?"

"Oh, no kicking out will be necessary, I'm sure. Naturally, I intended for you to find me – and as you see, I'm not exactly in Storybrooke."

That lying smile on his lips.

"I have too much respect for my royals to deliberately infringe on their territory."

He chuckled slightly – that laughter that was goblin-like, that Killian was sure had at least helped making him known under the nickname _Rumpelstiltskin_.

"And what a quaint little territory you have here, my lord. It's quite charming. Original, to say the least, when you were set to inherit the world. But I'm not here to judge."

"Why are you here? I suggest you answer quickly."

"Naturally, my lord."

Killian ground his teeth at the vampire's apparent subservience. When you handled someone like Rumpelstiltskin, you learned not to trust appearances.

"Your sister, our most gracious queen, wished for me to deliver a message."

"Did she?"

"Nothing of an unpleasant nature, I assure. I realize it must be difficult," Rumpelstiltskin gave the forest a global look, as if he wished to gather the whole of Storybrooke with one glance, "as you spend your days locked up in that small snow globe of a village, for you to be able to tell what things are actually like out there."

"Regina needn't worry about such things. I keep informed just fine."

"Then you know just how dire the situation is."

There was no further beating around the bush. Rumpelstiltskin's face grew grave as corpse all prepped for burial, and even Killian, who from birth had not known anything but the deathlike life of his immortal kind, grew slightly nervous.

Though only his sister's advisor stood before him, Killian had the feeling that he was really facing an army of the dead – death, itself – carried to their feet by a black cold wind, which was determined to ravage its way through Storybrooke and all the rest of the earth.

"We all knew this could not last forever," Rumpelstiltskin said. "To have two completely separate structures of power juxtaposed, the vampire and human worlds, with nothing but occasional overlaps – given how incredibly superior our own people is, it's surprising it's actually lasted for so long."

"War is not in our interest, Adam." Killian reminded. "The system has endured because it works. We might as well allow humans to govern themselves, seeing as we can't do without them."

"Yes, what a funny little paradox of nature," the other chuckled. "Humans are insignificant to vampires. And yet, vampires cannot live without humans."

"You can spare me your philosophical musings."

"Indeed, I shall. But our queen demanded I should be straightforward with you – indeed, she demanded I be _painstakingly_ clear. Too many among our ranks are growing tired of respecting the status quo. They're too numerous for your sister to ignore, so she must either listen to their claims or risk revolt. It's only a matter of time before the whole order collapses and a new kind of world emerges. When that happens, your sister wants you by her side, where you belong."

Killian looked at the sky. Glimmers of red and orange announced imminent daylight. He did not laugh arrogantly at the mention of his sister, did not pretend he could easily dismiss the thought of her.

"No one but her knows about my visit to you," he continued. "She bade me tell you – those are her very words – that your embarrassing flirtation with the human world had lasted long enough. In any case, it _cannot_ last much longer. She will arrange for your reinsertion smoothly if you surrender immediately. When war breaks out, which it soon will, she asks you do not put her through the ordeal of watching her own courtiers tear you to pieces, because you were foolish enough to stand in their way. Again, these are –"

"Her words, yes." Killian interrupted. "I know my sister's speech when I hear it."

He looked back at Rumpelstiltskin. For a moment, they were silent, playing blind to the breaking day, cold fragments of night too black to suffer dawn.

"Tell my sister she's not to feel sorry for me. I'm where I want to be. I didn't come all this way to become a slave – even hers."

"Your final word?"

"Yes."

"How regrettable."

"Call it as you wish."

"Perhaps it would help," Rumpelstiltskin suggested, "if you were to view it, not as an entreaty from your sister, but as a demand from your queen."

Killian smiled ruefully. "Regina is not my queen. You don't have to tell her I said this. She knows."

The other arched a brow in apparent disapproval. This would be the sort of prince, Killian thought, who wouldn't tolerate dissent even from a family member, the sort who would have his own flesh and blood publicly dismembered then burned to ashes, to make an example.

The sort of prince who would sooner be feared than loved.

Maybe Rumpelstiltskin was right, and Killian was a fool for choosing the side of humans, for loving a people that could only know how to fear him in return.

Regina would have him back, right now, if he took her advice. She'd have him sit by her side on the highest throne in the world – for a moment, he imagined it as it would happen, their old fondness for each other rekindled without effort, how she would answer his provocations with red, unimpressed grins.

 _My sweet sister_.

And Regina did love him, as he loved her; could love only flourish among equals?

Suddenly, Killian thought of Emma Swan, and the irrepressible repulsion that flooded her eyes at his merest touch.

It had been cruel of him to touch her.

Yet, now that he thought about it, it seemed to him that it had been cruel of her also.

 _I've spent too much time with humans. Now, I'm starting to imitate them in all their strange ways, their foolish contradictions._

"If we're done here," Killian said, brushing the thoughts away, "I wouldn't mind getting home. Not that I find your company unpleasant – well, actually, I find it very unpleasant."

Rumpelstiltskin hardly looked shaken by this. "Very well. If I can be bold enough to ask that you consider your sister's merciful offer – you have time to think of it, my lord. The night is young."

Killian scoffed. "It's almost dawn."

A horrid laugh split Rumpelstiltskin's mouth into a wide Cheshire smile, and Killian knew immediately what he meant.

This night was almost over, yes –

But the one that was coming, the one whose icy coat threatened to wrap the world into an endless winter of death and dereliction, _that_ night was only just beginning.

And the smile on Rumpelstiltskin's face made it clear he thought there would be no dawn at the end of it.

…

 **End Notes** : Hope you enjoyed this. Please share your thoughts in the comments section.


	9. Chapter 9

Emma chewed on her lip all the while that her boss went over her latest article, which in itself was nothing usual. When Emma was done with an article, she just published it on the newspaper's website. It had been ages since she'd needed Robin's help with editing.

But of course, this one was special.

Very special.

And though Emma was well-convinced of the existence and the danger posed by vampires – she still had a scarring wound on her neck to vouch for it – as Robin discovered her account with knitted brows, part of her felt exactly as crazy as she knew she looked.

"Before you say anything, please, can I explain?"

"Explain? Emma –"

Robin picked the cigar out of his mouth and held it between two fingers at the level of his eyes, looking all the more bemused as the thread of smoke oozed out, as if his very brain were smoldering. Robin was one of the rare employers Emma had known who still smoked in their offices.

"Is this a new April Fools' Day tradition, only not in April? I mean, is there a micro-camera on your purse filming my reaction?"

"This is serious."

"It _reads_ serious. Which is worse." Robin stared at her for a moment from beneath his thick brows. "You've put a lot of work into this. Had yourself a little trip to the archives, I can see. The material you've collected goes back as far as the 1890s – no, 1869, God help me. Will you tell me why the hell you spent hours browsing through news articles over a century old and bring me an article _so_ disturbing, it reads like bloodcurdling nonsense told by someone sane?"

Emma drew in a deep breath. "Robin, you know me. Have I ever done something crazy – no, even something out of character in the five years I've worked for you?"

"No. Honestly, though, I gotta tell you, right now that feels a little beside the point."

"I have a source."

A spark of interest flared in Robin's clear gray gaze. _Thank God_ , Emma repressed a sigh of relief. If he was even remotely intrigued by this and not willing to have her committed to the nearest asylum straight away, she would count it as a victory.

"A source? For _this_?"

"Yeah."

Robin shrugged, as if to shake off curiosity. "Well, I still don't see who might have authority enough to make me want to believe this is real for a second – let alone our readers. Unless it's the president of the United States, in which case we have us a whole different story."

Emma exhaled. "Okay. Can I be a little bold here and venture that you and I are friends, not only colleagues?"

"Technically, we're not colleagues, Em. You're my employee and I'm your boss."

She shot him a glare she knew to be extraordinarily efficient when it came to dissipating someone's mood to joke.

"Yeah, a'course we're friends."

Slowly, Emma unwound the red woolen scarf she'd been wearing every day since the attack, and watched as her employer discovered the wound – it looked strange enough in itself to elicit curiosity if not outright belief. The puncture marks were perfectly visible – not those two holes Emma remembered from vampire films, but a whole set of teeth tattooed on her throat. Human teeth, or close enough, but deep as only an animal could bite.

Still, Robin's face was unrevealing – he didn't look surprised or disgusted or really as if he'd seen it.

"Well?" She said.

"Well?"

Emma heard the rising impatience in her own voice. "Well, what do you think?"

"About what?"

"Jesus, can't you – are you even looking at it?"

"The, uh…" Robin cleared his throat, squinted a little. "The funny mark on your neck?"

"Yes, _yes_. Well, doesn't it look _unnatural_ to you?"

"Ye-s." He somehow cut two full syllables out of the word. Shook his head as he realized his cigar was still smoking unattended and crushed it in an ashtray that lay on his desk. "Honestly, Emma, it's a little hard to say. It's like I can't focus on it, for some reason – like I keep forgetting what I'm supposed to be looking at and why. It's weird, unsettling. Like I just want to look away and forget I've seen it. It really feels like I could."

" _Don't_."

The spark of command in her voice drew his eyes back into hers. Maybe it was unusual. As he'd rightly put it, she was the employee and he the boss, yet this had been an order.

She hadn't been able to help it.

Killian's warning was too fresh in her mind – _humans will have to adapt or die_.

"Beg your pardon?"

He didn't sound outraged, but honestly a little frightened – as if she'd opened up a door in front of him and they could both see it led to a great black void, deep as the universe, and it was dawning on him that what she meant was that, soon, there'd be no other option for either of them than to take that fall.

"These attacks are real, Robin," she said. "They're as real as they were a hundred years ago. If you look at the numbers I've put in, you'll see they've been getting more frequent in the region over time."

She didn't add that Storybrooke seemed to have been oddly left out of the vampires' radar. Didn't think her boss was quite ready to hear yet about the renegade vampire who protected the town. One thing at a time. Things had gotten crazy enough for one day.

"You're telling me an actual – that one of the things you're describing in there attacked _you_?"

This was wrong, she sensed, could hear the air of fiction in his mouth. When he said it, even she wanted to think, _Joke!_ All of it, the whole affair dismissed with a wave of the hand. _All a very bad joke_.

" _Look_ at it, Robin."

He shook his head. "You know I can't publish this, right?" Back to a strictly professional tone. Like she wasn't holding her scarf open to him and discovering those telltale teeth marks on her throat. "I mean, you didn't really come here this morning thinking you could convince me to publish this – honestly," he rubbed his index against his temple, "I can't see what you came for, Emma."

The young woman closed her eyes. In that brief flash of obscurity, it almost felt like she could talk to Killian –

 _You said I had to be the messenger, to help the world prepare for what's happening. How can I do that when they won't see the evidence, when they won't even look at it?_

"Right. Forget it."

"Hey, you're not mad?" He laughed. "We're both professionals –"

"I'm going to work from home in the next couple of days, okay?"

"Uh – yeah. But Emma, is everything –"

She'd put the scarf back into place as she got on her feet and motioned toward the door. The whole interview had been as good as nothing: already, she could tell Robin did not remember the marks she'd shown him, and as soon as she had shut the door behind her, he would close the Word file with her article still open on his computer, and he'd mechanically put it in the recycle bin. Just like that. And he wouldn't need to think of it again.

"Is everything okay?" He finished, sounding uncertain.

To his brain, by now, this had been a regular business meeting – maybe a vague impression of strangeness still loomed over it.

Emma hadn't really come here thinking she'd manage to convince him right away. But she might have at least sowed doubt, planted the seeds that in time would bloom into full-fledged awareness.

 _How will they fight an evil they can't even see?_

"Yeah. Don't worry about it."

She shut the door behind her, resisting the dramatic appeal of slamming it.

Her brain was fusing with such a blind confusion – exhaustion, anger – that she didn't even see Neal who was walking to meet her and crashed into him, causing the contents of his freshly filled coffee cop to splash his fortunately black shirt.

"Jesus, Em."

"I'm sorry."

She tried to sneak away while he was busy checking the damage done by the coffee, but he caught her by the arm –

Only part of her brain registered this as strange.

"Hey, wait."

The movement was enough for the rest of his coffee to spill over, this time, landing on the carpet.

Neal vaguely looked around them to make sure no one had been there staring, but the corridor was empty. The coffee machine at the end of the corridor beyond Robin's office had few faithful customers. Most of Emma's colleagues preferred the one on the first floor, which offered a richer variety of options for the same fee.

Besides, Neal didn't usually use either as he brought coffee from home in the form of a one-liter thermostat.

But right now, those irregularities fully disappeared in the much more important and urgent flow that had overtaken Emma's life in the past few days.

She didn't think Neal had gone to the coffee machine only to have an excuse to be there, in that corridor, while she was talking to Robin.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked.

She shook her head. "Can you tell?"

"What?"

"I mean, do you remember?"

He looked blankly at her for a moment, and Emma had time to look back at him – he was sweating, she thought, which was odd, because they kept the heat there at a reasonable level. And he looked tired, like his eyes had been painted in deep, dark hollows in his head.

She took that as a good sign. If he remembered coming at her house late at night a couple of days ago, and her telling him about the attack – that could only be a good sign.

"Yeah," he said, but that odd blankness in his eyes didn't go away. Like he was seeing beyond her, somehow, though his eyes were fixed on hers. "Yeah, of course."

She sighed in relief. "Look, I'm going home."

"What? It's like nine a.m. –"

"There's something I need to work on. Something that can't wait."

Neal nodded. That odd stare in his eyes, and he was still holding her forearm, and not paying much mind to the fact that he was covered in coffee.

"Well, do you want to show me? Your project."

It wasn't actually unusual for them to work like this. Robin's newspaper had a very open, collaborative vibe to it.

"When it's finished," she answered, and shook free from the limp hold of his hand.

Then, she was turning away, and not expecting he'd say anything to hold her back, so she half started in surprise when he said, "Tonight."

She turned back to look at him. "What?"

Smiling now, a little. Not one she recognized as the boyish smile of her long-date friend. "Tonight." He said again.

It was a while before she could think of interpreting him. "Well, I don't know if it'll be finished by then."

"No," he said. "I can come over tonight. Keep you company."

She hadn't said she was in need of it. And yet something about the whole incidental encounter felt so off, Emma's instincts to investigate perked up, ready for the right signal.

"Sure," she said.

Somehow, she felt reluctant to turn her back to him while he was still smiling that odd smile of his.

"Aren't you – aren't you going to get another coffee?"

He nodded, and slowly disappeared into the corridor.

Emma shivered before she could help it.

 _That smile_ , she thought.

What was so _wrong_ about it?

The answer tore a shiver out of her.

Well, simply enough… there was usually less _teeth_ in it.

…

 **End Notes** : Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Do share your thoughts in the comment section if you feel like it.


	10. Chapter 10

Emma screamed when his face appeared out her window, nothing to be done about it. She was on edge – was literally on the edge of a dark and different world – and when a vampire was suddenly at your house, even through a barrier of glass, and even if the look on his face hinted he was clearly making an effort not to seem frightening, screaming was just the right thing to do.

However much of a precious ally Killian might prove to be in this war he said humanity was on the brink of, he was still a vampire –

A different kind, a different species from her.

One who her blood and bones told her to be wary of.

"Jesus Christ," she whispered.

She didn't know whether Killian could hear her, even despite the fact that the window was closed and sealed, or if he merely read her lips, but his mouth stretched into a slight grin.

To hear God's name spoken to their faces was maybe some kind of private joke to vampires.

Without giving Emma's heart enough time to settle back to its normal rate, Killian cocked his head to the side, motioning for Emma to open it.

Though there was nothing wrong about doing as she asked, fear prickled her fingertips as she worked on the lock, her eyes planted on the patient, terrible face before her.

It fascinated her somewhat to think she had not known from the start – that she had not figured out something was different about Killian, even when he was just the quiet stranger at the library who gave her that strange smile when they ran into each other. A smile that had the aspect of humanness, but that was no more human than the black depths of an abyss whose nature it is to swallow victim after victim without remedy, and without mercy.

Not like she could have guessed _vampire_ , but still –

Still, hadn't part of her _known_ , with an instinct that reason relentlessly crushes at the threshold of consciousness?

There was no way to mask her wariness as she opened the window, twisting the knob and lifting it upward while being sure no finger poked out of the safe perimeter of her house.

It was he who had told her not to let him in.

He couldn't well resent her for taking him at his word.

"Evening."

"It's past midnight," she said.

"Is it? My apologies," though he could not really think he had pulled her from sleep. She was still fully dressed, and he'd caught her as she was crossing over toward the kitchen to set the kettle boiling for more coffee. "I had some errand to run before I came here. I didn't think it'd take so much time."

Emma didn't answer.

It had been a week since she'd last seen him.

That late-night conversation in her car.

Every time the thought of it, or of any other moment she had spent with Killian, crossed her mind, unpleasant shivers travelled down her back, as though recalling contact with a venomous spider. Yet the waters in which those memories left her were not altogether uncompelling, and Emma found herself returning to them in fascination as well as fear.

"It's not a problem, is it?"

"What?"

"The hour," he said. "You don't need your human sleep just at this moment, do you? Good. Then go on and join me outside, will you, Swan? We need to talk."

Emma thought briefly of the work waiting on her laptop. Oh, how she wished her experience of the vampire world would remain one of theory only. As a rule, Emma never shied away from field work, indeed, thought you could only truly learn about a subject through practice as well as theory, but her courage had its limits. And if she didn't draw the line at blood-thirsty monsters, where the hell would she draw it?

"Oh, or should we reschedule?"

Now, he was teasing her, his tone a parody of politeness.

"Please, by all means, Swan. I didn't take you for the sort of person that sips tea while the ship is sinking, but if you insist –"

"Cut it out." She sighed. "I'll be right there. Give me a second to put on some shoes."

The closest she found was a pair of pink slippers. Even at night, the outside air was mild, so she merely wrapped herself in a shawl before she stepped out.

The otherworldly whiteness of Killian's face, and the blue of his eyes in which black depths shimmered out of human reach, were truly a sight to behold.

When Emma was younger, she used to go to a diner with friends from the orphanage, and there was an old waiter there who always smiled at her when he hander her her order, and who never failed to say, "You're a sight for sore eyes, you are."

She hadn't thought of this for ages but now, Emma thought that Killian Jones was the precise reverse – the sort of sight that _makes_ your eyes sore.

The sort of beauty your brain cannot comprehend, the beauty of the tiger that draws majestically closer to you.

Emma steeled herself.

She was usually better at making herself blind to Killian's predatory nature when he was around.

"So. You wanted to talk."

"Let's walk a little. There's better places to have a conversation like this than your doorstep."

Emma didn't protest and led Killian to the small garden behind her house, where they were shielded at least from the neighbors as well as any passersby that happened to be wandering out late in the streets.

There were a couple of chairs and a table, where Emma sometimes sat to have coffee on Sundays, when the weather allowed it.

But Killian remained standing, and she felt nowhere near casual enough to take a seat.

He didn't beat around the bush after that.

"You aren't safe here."

Though Emma opened her mouth, no sound came out. It felt like a black hole had suddenly opened beneath her feet.

"What?"

"I've been watching, keeping an eye out."

Emma wondered if she should sound outraged. "And?"

"And there's people on the prowl. My kind, your kind."

"My kind –"

"Some vampires have very persuasive skills," Killian sighed. "Call it a kind of gift. They could make you jump off the rooftop and you'd obey them without batting an eyelid. Well," he shook his head, "maybe _you_ wouldn't. The vampire's power is only as strong as the human's resistance allows it to be. But anyway, I'm afraid it's all as I feared."

"I don't –"

"They've noticed my relationship with you."

Emma closed her mouth. _What relationship is that, exactly_ , she wondered, but didn't find enough air in her lungs to ask.

"And they've sent people to follow you. I'm sorry, Emma. Let's say I'm a notorious individual in the vampire world, and every one of my little habits undergoes insufferable scrutiny."

" _I_ 'm a little habit?"

"I'm using the language they'd use." But the look on his face hinted he might actually be softening it up. "Anyway. Getting into terminology will do us no good."

"Uh – how bad is it?" Emma wasn't sure what to say.

After everything she'd been through lately, she wasn't sure being followed by vampires made such a huge difference. What was she going to do? Be _more_ scared to end up as a meal for the undead, if that's what they called themselves?

But given the earnest look on Killian's face, it was a deal-changer.

"Hard to say." He answered. "They might have only done it out of interest in me. Just to keep an eye on what I'm doing. Again –"

She interrupted, "Their language."

"Yeah."

Emma crossed her arms over her chest, not because it was cold, but because she wanted to tame the throbbing of her heart inside her ribcage.

"What," she said, "they care that much about you?"

Killian smiled, like she'd said something naïve. "I'm, eh – like I said, I'm not nobody in the great scale of power out there."

"But you live in _Storybrooke_. You're completely isolated from the other vampires."

He cocked his head to the side. "You don't always choose what you're born into, do you?"

"You mean –" She couldn't help but gape. "Like royalty?"

Part of her hated her own reaction. After all, what did it matter whether Killian was a vampire prince, or a vampire emperor, or a bloody digest of the two, if such a thing existed in his world? The fact remained that they were from a completely different universe, and whatever his rank or his status, there was little that could make the divide between them seem any greater.

"Like that," he said. "But if you don't mind – that's not really the point."

Emma shrugged. Honestly, she couldn't see where he was trying to take the conversation. "Yeah. I mean, I'll try to be safe. Invite no strangers at home. Go to work strictly in broad daylight." She was so surprised when he laughed at her, she took her irritated-bossy tone. "Something funny?"

Except Killian didn't _sound_ amused. Really. He was taking this much, much more seriously than she was. "Oh, Swan. I don't think you understand. If they decide they want my attention, or if they simply want to see how I'll react, they could rip your throat and bleed you to death before you have time to say your prayers – or whatever it is people in your century say now before they die."

"But you said – if I stuck to the light – that I'd –"

"That was when I thought vampires wouldn't come for you, personally. If they did, you might as well start barricading yourself in your own home and not come out for air as long as you care to keep on breathing. Even then, they could smoke you out. Then, when you chose to dash out of your burning house instead of being cooked alive, they could seize you in a second and do whatever –"

"If you wanted to scare me, you have."

"Good." He sighed. "I'm afraid I _need_ you to be scared of them, before I can get you to agree to my solution. That is, more scared of them than you are of _me_."

A flash of anger flew into Emma's face. "That's not fair," she said.

"My dear Emma, what still is in this world?" His eyes wandered toward the garden chairs behind her. "Maybe you should sit down."

"Thanks, I'd rather not."

"As you like. But this is going to take a while, you might as well be comfortable."

"What is?"

The awareness of the heat in her own face was almost unbearable.

Memories from adolescence budded into her mind, of boys taking her out into the woods, laying their jackets on a bed of leaves. _Would you rather lie down?_

Yes, this was what Killian's tone reminded her of; and though surely it wasn't his fault, she was irritated by it. The faint, rotten smell of death that radiated from him was dimmed a little by the outside air, but the sight of him was still unnatural, still made her flesh crawl.

"You have some very long-winded point you need to make? Is that why you drew me out?"

Killian shook his head. "What I have to tell you's not long at all. Won't take a minute. It's just I'm anticipating on having to convince you. If your priority is getting back inside your house as fast as possible, all the better. We can skip the bit where you put up any objections. That's fine with me."

"Well, what is it?"

"I'm going to have to start drinking your blood."

Silence punched into Emma's chest, hard as rock.

In the blink of an eye, her garden turned into a hostile environment. Despite herself, she felt her already hammering heart quicken its pace, felt the need to run though her legs seemed made of melty wax, and an icy cold sensation spread from the roots of her hair to her toes.

"See, I told you you wouldn't like it."

He dragged in a long breath, while she battled every instinct in her that shouted at her to give a try to running for dear life, no matter how slim her odds were of making it back to the house before he caught her. Her efforts to reason with her body's imperatives were useless –

 _He's a friend. He saved my life,_ her brain argued, but her blood and bones bellowed, much louder, _He's a predator. He's the beguiling angel and the smiling devil rolled into one. Run for your life._

Yes, when it came down to this, Emma felt no 'friendship' between she and Killian meant anything… She felt the naked truth was that he was a hunting hound and she was game, she was a piece of meat and he a toothy mouth.

Nothing more elaborate than that.

"Relax." He sounded careful, wanting to show he was taking her seriously. "I won't do anything you don't agree to, Swan. Never. I haven't drunk a drop of human blood in nearly fifty years. There's no risk of my losing control around you. This is strictly political. Let me explain."

She must have gone whiter than the half-moon above them given the utter absence of smiling sarcasm on his face.

And now, she was starting to think it _would_ have been a good idea to sit down, considering the marshmallow-feel of her legs.

"Political?"

"Yes."

Emma leant against the brick wall of her house, not caring that she couldn't hide the force of her reaction from him.

Honestly, it was all she was capable of to stand collected in front of him, right now, and not run or collapse.

"Okay. Tell me."

"It's called the blood-bond rule. Very, very old. We vampires, too, have a constitution, as your people do, and a lot of us are quite as fanatical about it as you are with yours."

"Well, I don't think –" But Emma stopped herself from finishing.

What did it matter now to debate how healthy the relationship between the Americans and their beloved constitution was?

Killian resumed. "All the rules that dictate vampire laws and punishments are in that text. And it's quite conservative, I'll tell you." He sighed. "Imagine if your Congress not only decided what was and wasn't constitutional, but had also been _around_ at the time the text was crafted. Anyway," he, too, seemed to admonish himself for the digression. "Among the hundreds ridiculous decrees that make up our constitution, there's a special clause whose name is too long for any of us to quote in its entire form. Most of us call it the blood-bond rule."

Emma nodded, to show she was listening, and to try to focus on what he was saying rather than the idea of his teeth in her throat, how cold and mighty his grip must be like, and the acrid smell that would fill her brain – the unhinging, death-like smell of his otherness.

"And what is it?"

"To cut a long story short, it says clearly that though humans are the natural prey of the vampire world, and can be hunted and used at will, an exception exists when a vampire selects one human who is to become his favored source of feeding. If the relationship is marked clearly, then the law demands no justification for the preference. The human, for as long as it's kept alive, is to be used by its sire only."

"It."

"Sorry?"

"The human. You called them _it_."

Her comment left him unfazed. He said by means of explanation, "That's how they call them in the book."

Likewise, he paid no mind to her audible scoff.

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"How did I do? I mean, with my explanation. Sometimes, it's difficult for me to understand you, Swan. You humans," he specified, as if any suggestion that she was special would be inappropriate. "You can see I'm bringing this up strictly for your sake."

The palms of her hands prickled. She felt she could have slapped him, punched him, even, and in her mind, it would have looked like hitting a regular human, no danger in it at all.

The strength of the impulse ultimately made her more frightened than angry.

"Really? That's not what I heard, Killian. What I heard, is you want me to be like the tame humans in your vampire clause. You want to _feed_ on me."

"To _save_ you."

"How do you – if there are some vampires after me, how do you even know they'll respect the rules? You said it yourself, chaos is on its way. All the rules of the old order are changing."

"There's a difference between changing customs and changing the law. The constitution says nothing about the protection of humans. True, some may challenge the blood-bond rule. There's always a risk of that happening, and in these times who knows where they'll draw the line. But at least it'd be a security measure for you – it'd be better than leaving you completely defenseless."

Emma was dismayed by the cold, unrecognizable sound of her own laughter. Killian stopped and appraised her cautiously.

She felt she had no right to treat him like this. After all, he hadn't done anything reprehensible – he had merely come here with a proposition, and apparently, holding her best interests in mind.

Yes, he had crossed no limit; but he had opened a door to a new turn in their relationship that he must know she couldn't be comfortable with.

He hadn't forced his entry or even persuaded her to let him in.

But he _had_ opened it.

"Like I said." His voice was cold as her laughter. "It's strictly political, Swan."

"You think I'm going to let you come here, regularly, and _feed_ on me, to keep your vampire friends at bay? That they'll, what, smell you when they come near me, and they'll know they can't touch me now, that I'm yours?"

He resisted her push toward anger – toward passion.

There was something wrong, somehow, with his refusal to _be_ passionate at such a time, that he would talk about this in terms of clauses and constitutional rules when he was talking about his putting his teeth to her throat, about giving way to the animal forces always latent in the air between them, but never given free range.

His coolness when he replied was remarkable – and sharper than he had ever been to her so far. "First," he said, "they are not my _friends_. I'd much appreciate if you could keep that in mind. As far as I know, the murderers and rapists that fill your prisons are humans, yet I don't go about assuming you're on social terms, just because you happen to belong to the same species. Second, I didn't say I thought you'd agree to this. I came here to put the situation to you plain and simple. Your choice, Swan. Your life. I thought you deserved to know what I think your best chances of survival are, and maybe I was a bit hasty in assuming that you'd trust me."

Here, his blue eyes became ardent, and she could tell she had made him angry.

The fact alone was too surprising for her to immediately feel afraid as a consequence.

"I mean," he said, still in an ice-cold tone, "if I _wanted_ to feed on you, I wouldn't need to come up with a stratagem to do it, would I? I thought that should tell you clearly enough I have your safety in mind."

"And why _do_ you care?" She snapped, taking them both aback. "Whether I live or die, whether I end up as a vampire snack?"

He didn't look down. He held eye-contact with her, and she sensed very clearly that she had asked a question he himself had pondered over many times, and had been at a loss to answer.

"Maybe, one day, we'll have a long talk about how I lived as an intruder among the human race for centuries and ended up falling for them." He said. "Tonight's not the time."

She didn't remark that his explanation was general, while her question had been personal. They had more urgent things to talk about.

"Can you give me time? To consider it."

He sighed. "Like I said. Your life. Your choice, Swan. How much time do you want?"

She didn't know. How much time _was_ wanted to come to terms with a situation such as the one he'd described?

"Can you come back tomorrow night?"

He nodded. There was a tightness in his clenched jaw, suggesting he did not like this. How great was the danger, really? Was she being a fool, wandering without protection with a red cross painted on her throat? Did it all seem irrelevant and stupid to him, her caring about principles, about what his feeding on her would do to how she perceived her sense of self and freedom, when he was trying to save her life?

On his face, she hastily searched for clues, for thoughts that might be crossing his mind –

 _She's not ready. She's still caught in the philosophical tangles of life when her whole world is about to be reduced to survival – plain and simple._

But she found no such things.

Killian's face knew how to keep quiet better than that.

After all, he had had centuries of practice.

"All right," he said. "One word of advice? Don't wander about. Work from home if you can. And, this is important – don't let anyone in, all right. Even humans. Even people you think you know."

He turned away and started to fade into the night.

It struck her he could have just vanished from her sight, quicker than a blink; maybe he was trying to spare her humanness unnecessary shocks.

"Killian?"

He looked back at her.

"Would it do something to you?" She rolled her lips together. "You said you haven't tasted human blood in fifty years. Would it have an effect on you if you did – if you drank mine?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

For the first time, she truly felt the unfairness between them – the cruelty in the natural imbalance of their exchanges.

That he could feel nothing when she was all turmoil, and if any unruly emotion did bloom, that he could hide it so expertly from view.

"It's beside the point. This is the only way. Good night, Swan."

Soon, she was standing alone in her garden, the quietness of the night denying anything out of the ordinary had taken place.

Her back was still pressed against the wall of her house, and she could feel the layer of sweat that had formed over her skin.

Unfair, yes.

Unfair, that he could disappear like this, taking all traces of his existence along with him, and leaving her with nothing but the night-woven prospect of his suggestion –

Leaving her like Eve in the garden, where the snake had crawled out of sight, and nothing but the ruby-red shine of temptation remained for her to look at.

…

 **End Notes** : Sorry it took me so long to update. Hope you all handled confinement okay – as okay as possible. Please share your thoughts in the comment section and take care!


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